(no subject)
I think it's awesome that the DNC is being held in Boston, because this whole week I get to turn on the T.V. and see all the sights I became accustomed to those three years up north.
There's always the minute and terrifying possibility that I will see the beautiful city destroyed in a blinding atomic flash.
But I seriously doubt it.
So Boston, Boston, Boston.
The city seemed so alien and overwhelming when I first visited, in the 12th grade, to check out the Emerson Open House.
I guess I felt intimidated -- lost my will -- because I did not apply to Emerson that year.
I had it in my head that I was going to be an actor -- hell, I was good, right? -- I played Macbeth at Tennessee's Governor's School for the Arts, right? I won The Tennessee State Forensics and Theatre Arts competition for Best Actor and Best Solo Performance. Hamlet, Demetrius ... So I put all my ambitious eggs into one basket called North Carolina School for the Arts and went in to audition. Inside the audition room, my brain melted, I knew it I knew it, I can barely remember what I did in there except the dim memory of trying to improvise Shakespeare. I walked out knowing I wouldn't get in.
And I didn't. So I decided to go to the University of Memphis, all the way across the state, where I didn't know a soul.
From the green hills and blue mountains of Home to the humid earthy flatness of Memphis ... where I knew beforehand I wouldn't stay -- I'd stay a year and try and transfer ...
Beginning a sort of recurring habit for me -- living with only one foot in life, while the other is poised, ready to spring away and run at any given moment ...
Memphis, the phantom year, the ghost time -- smoked a lot of pot. Too much. Started writing poetry in Memphis; filled up a whole notebook all the way to the back, then started writing on the back of the pages all the way to the front. I remember as being a lot of brilliant writing, but we can't know can we? The notebook was subsequently lost in the following summer. So it goes. Crushes and drama and loneliness ... became enamoured with Van Gogh and discovered Paul Klee. My excitement at finding a book on Hirshfeld at the U of M library ...
And lets not forget the theatre department ... I was one of the only freshman who were accepted by the inner clique of the department because i was good, i kept on getting cast and acting well ... i was voted Best Actor and Best Newcomer by the department ... but I never felt ... never felt like I was one of them. They were very talkative, excitable people ... they told a lot of stories and jokes and laughed a whole lot and I sort of hung back, I was quiet much of the time ... thinking, I am not an actor ... I wanted to make movies ...
All those faces, now spread out across the continent, oh where are you ...?
I applied to B.U., Emerson, and N.Y.U. Almost got in N.Y.U. -- they called and said they were waiting for my transcript from Memphis to make a decision, but I gues they saw the "F" in Beginning Drawing and said thanks but no thanks. What can I say? The class was at 8 in the morning. I never made that mistake again.
So Emerson, and the move up North.
Boston.
I remember getting into Allston on September 1st ... Comm Ave and Harvard Ave were packed with vans, U-Hauls ... madness. lugging, heaving sweating all the furniture up floor flights of stairs in the muggy Boston heat... arranging that little room that me and Flaccy shared.
Feeling absolutely miserable, paranoid, and lonely my first year there.
Unable to make friends, feeling the short circuiting synapses blowing up in my brain whenever I had to interact with anyone other than my roommates -- what's wrong with me? Am I dumb? Will they think me slow because I'm from the South? Talk, Brad! TALK!!
But no words came, and I'd sit near the back in my classes and file out when they were done. Became friends with the Commons and the Public Gardens. I'd feed sqirrels and pigeons after a jaunt up Tremont to Burger King -- I had no Meal Plan ... I looked up at the Dining Hall in the Little Building and at all the groups of friends and people who knew each other hanging around the Little Building ... what makes me different?
And so walking around Boston, aimlessless, through the streets of Beacon Hill and down Boylston, down Comm Ave, up Harvard ... exploring those ratty streets, graffiti, pools of water stagnant ... the gardens, tucked away and hidden, Russian and Polish women, pulling little shopping carts, everyone bundled up for the winter, that biting Boston winter, ice and trains and red-brick buildings...
Isn't it strange how we have these maps in our heads? If we spend enough time in a place, the layouts, the grids, the topography turn a place that, at first, is overwhelming and confusing into a familiar, well worn mental map. I love Boston because I know Boston well; like the body of a lover, I've explored her from head to toe, and though we've parted amicably, I can't help but wish for her sometimes ...
Which is why I'm getting a kick out of seeing Boston on T.V. this week ... The John Hancock Building and the Prudential Center are like Boston's compass ... If you were blindfolded, stuffed in a car, and driven anywhere in the city and let go, all you'd have to do is look for those two skyscrapers ... judging by the relationship, you can tell which cardinal direction you're facing, and roughly where you need to start walking to get back home.
There's always the minute and terrifying possibility that I will see the beautiful city destroyed in a blinding atomic flash.
But I seriously doubt it.
So Boston, Boston, Boston.
The city seemed so alien and overwhelming when I first visited, in the 12th grade, to check out the Emerson Open House.
I guess I felt intimidated -- lost my will -- because I did not apply to Emerson that year.
I had it in my head that I was going to be an actor -- hell, I was good, right? -- I played Macbeth at Tennessee's Governor's School for the Arts, right? I won The Tennessee State Forensics and Theatre Arts competition for Best Actor and Best Solo Performance. Hamlet, Demetrius ... So I put all my ambitious eggs into one basket called North Carolina School for the Arts and went in to audition. Inside the audition room, my brain melted, I knew it I knew it, I can barely remember what I did in there except the dim memory of trying to improvise Shakespeare. I walked out knowing I wouldn't get in.
And I didn't. So I decided to go to the University of Memphis, all the way across the state, where I didn't know a soul.
From the green hills and blue mountains of Home to the humid earthy flatness of Memphis ... where I knew beforehand I wouldn't stay -- I'd stay a year and try and transfer ...
Beginning a sort of recurring habit for me -- living with only one foot in life, while the other is poised, ready to spring away and run at any given moment ...
Memphis, the phantom year, the ghost time -- smoked a lot of pot. Too much. Started writing poetry in Memphis; filled up a whole notebook all the way to the back, then started writing on the back of the pages all the way to the front. I remember as being a lot of brilliant writing, but we can't know can we? The notebook was subsequently lost in the following summer. So it goes. Crushes and drama and loneliness ... became enamoured with Van Gogh and discovered Paul Klee. My excitement at finding a book on Hirshfeld at the U of M library ...
And lets not forget the theatre department ... I was one of the only freshman who were accepted by the inner clique of the department because i was good, i kept on getting cast and acting well ... i was voted Best Actor and Best Newcomer by the department ... but I never felt ... never felt like I was one of them. They were very talkative, excitable people ... they told a lot of stories and jokes and laughed a whole lot and I sort of hung back, I was quiet much of the time ... thinking, I am not an actor ... I wanted to make movies ...
All those faces, now spread out across the continent, oh where are you ...?
I applied to B.U., Emerson, and N.Y.U. Almost got in N.Y.U. -- they called and said they were waiting for my transcript from Memphis to make a decision, but I gues they saw the "F" in Beginning Drawing and said thanks but no thanks. What can I say? The class was at 8 in the morning. I never made that mistake again.
So Emerson, and the move up North.
Boston.
I remember getting into Allston on September 1st ... Comm Ave and Harvard Ave were packed with vans, U-Hauls ... madness. lugging, heaving sweating all the furniture up floor flights of stairs in the muggy Boston heat... arranging that little room that me and Flaccy shared.
Feeling absolutely miserable, paranoid, and lonely my first year there.
Unable to make friends, feeling the short circuiting synapses blowing up in my brain whenever I had to interact with anyone other than my roommates -- what's wrong with me? Am I dumb? Will they think me slow because I'm from the South? Talk, Brad! TALK!!
But no words came, and I'd sit near the back in my classes and file out when they were done. Became friends with the Commons and the Public Gardens. I'd feed sqirrels and pigeons after a jaunt up Tremont to Burger King -- I had no Meal Plan ... I looked up at the Dining Hall in the Little Building and at all the groups of friends and people who knew each other hanging around the Little Building ... what makes me different?
And so walking around Boston, aimlessless, through the streets of Beacon Hill and down Boylston, down Comm Ave, up Harvard ... exploring those ratty streets, graffiti, pools of water stagnant ... the gardens, tucked away and hidden, Russian and Polish women, pulling little shopping carts, everyone bundled up for the winter, that biting Boston winter, ice and trains and red-brick buildings...
Isn't it strange how we have these maps in our heads? If we spend enough time in a place, the layouts, the grids, the topography turn a place that, at first, is overwhelming and confusing into a familiar, well worn mental map. I love Boston because I know Boston well; like the body of a lover, I've explored her from head to toe, and though we've parted amicably, I can't help but wish for her sometimes ...
Which is why I'm getting a kick out of seeing Boston on T.V. this week ... The John Hancock Building and the Prudential Center are like Boston's compass ... If you were blindfolded, stuffed in a car, and driven anywhere in the city and let go, all you'd have to do is look for those two skyscrapers ... judging by the relationship, you can tell which cardinal direction you're facing, and roughly where you need to start walking to get back home.