Auto Shop Brooklyn
there's something magical about my neighborhood in brooklyn in the summer. i'm not talking about the brownstone brooklyn, the park slopes and boerum hills, the brooklyn heights and cobble hills, but about Auto Shop Brooklyn, the aggressive frontiers around these chi-chi outposts, the land of white castle and, well, auto shops, scrap yards, abandoned lots, and "sell your home--CASH!" signs tacked up on old brick buildings or razor-wire topped fences. the neighborhood seems forbidding with its slew of strange accents and strange looks, occasionally-lobbed bottles or aggressive hollers, its loud nights and odd trash policies. But in the summer time, the lots in front of shops, the stoops or sidewalks in front of row houses, all bloom with activity. Old women in flowery dresses sitting out in the cool night air. Barbeques spilling out in the street. Caribbean dance parties in open lots. Craps and dice games and public drinking. Cars with booming stereos and kids spilling out into the street, spraying each other with water guns or lobbing grenade-like water balloons from windows.
The clouds are light pastel mountains lumbering around the large blue sky, unhindered (so far) by towers and tall billboards. Even if it is clear, the occasional thunder roar can be heard from passing storm clouds, threatening rain but not interested in visiting or not willing to stay too long. The bass can be heard late into the night, as can smashed bottles or downshifting trucks. But Manhattan is quiet and isolated in comparison to the festive explosion that is late May in Auto Shop Brooklyn. May I never leave, even if I am never invited to the party. because there's nothing better than eating jerk chicken on the sidewalk, sucking on a beer with no police harassment--well, if they have better things to do, and they often do, not far to the east. I even love the strange sunday-night pentecostal concerts--not what you'd expect, with an out-of-tune electric guitar and an old-sounding caribbean accent, blasting out of a church filled with women in white robes. Even if they keep me up late at night.
A bunch of balloons drifting black against the cloud-and-blue sky, higher and higher, drifting slowly toward Manhattan. They can go there if they want, although I suspect that if they had the choice, they would have stuck around at the birthday party they were invited to. Because Manhattan is no fun. Really.
The clouds are light pastel mountains lumbering around the large blue sky, unhindered (so far) by towers and tall billboards. Even if it is clear, the occasional thunder roar can be heard from passing storm clouds, threatening rain but not interested in visiting or not willing to stay too long. The bass can be heard late into the night, as can smashed bottles or downshifting trucks. But Manhattan is quiet and isolated in comparison to the festive explosion that is late May in Auto Shop Brooklyn. May I never leave, even if I am never invited to the party. because there's nothing better than eating jerk chicken on the sidewalk, sucking on a beer with no police harassment--well, if they have better things to do, and they often do, not far to the east. I even love the strange sunday-night pentecostal concerts--not what you'd expect, with an out-of-tune electric guitar and an old-sounding caribbean accent, blasting out of a church filled with women in white robes. Even if they keep me up late at night.
A bunch of balloons drifting black against the cloud-and-blue sky, higher and higher, drifting slowly toward Manhattan. They can go there if they want, although I suspect that if they had the choice, they would have stuck around at the birthday party they were invited to. Because Manhattan is no fun. Really.