A day out and about the city. Met to consult on her first tattoo. We went of course to DareDevil Tattoo, home of the Friday the 13th special. I think I was able to get her connected with a fabulous artist who will give her just the right treatment. After getting that squared away, we went for a falafel at the St Mark’s Mamoun’s and hit the St. Mark’s Bookshop where I miraculously left without buying anything, even after looking at the tempting bargain table. (Should I boast about not supporting an independent book store in this day and age? Truth is, they’ve had plenty of my money already.) On the pillar at the center of the store i was stopped by a photograph of Kathy Acker, and realized that it was part of the announcement for her memorial service from more than ten years ago, the same invite I have here in my papers somewhere. Then D and I talked about when she had first lived in New York and she looked around the street for signs of where The Electric Circus had been. She walked me up 4th avenue, to the art supply store, so I could pick up some more bristol board for the new dailies, and then we hit Trader Joe’s. A got home and quickly headed back out again to meet T for some BBQ in Fort Greene. T thought I still lived there , whereas the truth is that I’ve barely been there in five years or so. We met up at The Smoke Joint which used to be Cambodian Cuisine.It was one of Philip and my favorite places, and I couldn’t keep from detailing to T all the ways the neighborhood had changed while looking around the newly spacious dining room. I realized the the part we were sitting in had not been part of the original layout, but had been part of the video store the one that had been owned by the gay Caribbean couple, one half of whom tried to lure me into his back “Office” for some quick groping every time I went in. I later found out this was standard practice for just about any guy that went inside. I remember that it got to the point where I would make sure that there were other customers in before I would even open the door. Now that office looks to be a little wait area tucked behind the overstocked bar. That’s New York; on every square inch of it someone has eaten dinner or been felt up or croaked or been remembered or gotten over. And it all churns on, all that emotion making the mulch for us to wade through and grow our lives in.
One more point: in the midst of writing this entry I’m seeing the way that linking to something absolves me of the responsibility of rendering it in description. Just grunt, point at it and move on. There’s something to be said for celebrating the splaying branches of online knowledge, but something else to say for the hard work of ordering thought, retrieving impressions and fashioning them into sentences.
Tags:
daily photo,
Fort Greene,
friends,
memory,
new york life,
tattooing
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