more musical ponderings
so i was going to draw a bath earlier. but just before i went in, i put on wyclef jean's the carnival so i'd have music on while i was soaking. suddenly it was ten years ago and i was in new york city again, visiting for the weekend with my friend sarah who lived in the east village and turned every day into an adventure. sarah was as much at home with big pun as with edith piaf. sarah could make pasta with basil pesto but had never eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because, i think, her family considered it déclassé. sarah came to visit me once in tennessee and her goals were to pet a cow and to look at my lawn mower.
we had fancy dinner parties with baccarat crystal and dresden gold-dipped china, and we went clubbing at mother on click 'n drag night, which was themed "cyberfetish," however one wanted to interpret that - a lot of silver and purple and a lot of bondage gear, mostly. we'd take taxis and smoke cloves and shoot pool in pool halls with a tribe called quest on the jukebox. we'd walk down canal or mulberry or prince in baggy jeans and skullcaps, or we'd dress in black skirts and wraps and head up fifth avenue to visit tony restaurants and peruse the braques on loan at the uptown guggenheim. we spent time in enormous art supply shops and dives in chinatown. we picked up chrysanthemum tea at pearl river market, sugary fuel for those late-night laundry sessions. we hiked around alphabet city at three-thirty in the morning, after the dujeous? show at the nuyorican poets cafe let out, and borrowed pennies from drug dealers to ride the mechanical horse outside the deli on avenue d. we owned the city, and wyclef jean was our soundtrack.
we had fancy dinner parties with baccarat crystal and dresden gold-dipped china, and we went clubbing at mother on click 'n drag night, which was themed "cyberfetish," however one wanted to interpret that - a lot of silver and purple and a lot of bondage gear, mostly. we'd take taxis and smoke cloves and shoot pool in pool halls with a tribe called quest on the jukebox. we'd walk down canal or mulberry or prince in baggy jeans and skullcaps, or we'd dress in black skirts and wraps and head up fifth avenue to visit tony restaurants and peruse the braques on loan at the uptown guggenheim. we spent time in enormous art supply shops and dives in chinatown. we picked up chrysanthemum tea at pearl river market, sugary fuel for those late-night laundry sessions. we hiked around alphabet city at three-thirty in the morning, after the dujeous? show at the nuyorican poets cafe let out, and borrowed pennies from drug dealers to ride the mechanical horse outside the deli on avenue d. we owned the city, and wyclef jean was our soundtrack.