Tag: #WestVillage

  • Drinking on a Tuesday Night

    Last night, an old friend of mine took me out for dinner and drinks. Turns out it was more drinks than dinner. In the West Village, we sat outside in one of those sidewalk shanties that have a heater in it. We were the only two idiots out there, and I say idiots because it was like 38 degrees last night. But the alternative was that we would have been inside a very tiny restaurant/bar where no one had a mask on, and we both have kids that aren’t vaccinated, so not wanting to take any risks, outside we sat.

    The pretense of this dinner was to get together and talk about The BEATLES: Get Back doc, as we both are rather huge BEATLES fans. But in all honesty, it was just an excuse to hang out with an old friend and catch up. And we talked very loudly in that shanty. So loud that someone yelled at us to shut up at 11pm, and then the restaurant manager came out and politely told us to lower our voices. Then at midnight, she threw our drunk asses out. They were closing, and  we apologized, while my friend tipped a large amount. Hopefully, we’ll be welcomed back.

    I walked my friend back to their apartment building, as they were a bit more drunk than me, and I wanted to make sure they got home safe. Old friends walking down a very quiet street of Federal styled townhomes, being a bit obnoxious, and laughing too much. My friend made it home, and we promised each other to do this again, and soon.

    And then I did something that I hadn’t done in a long time, I just wandered around the West Village. Cutting back and forth on streets, looking at buildings, and blinking Christmas lights in windows. More and more storefronts are closed, and there weren’t many people out, so a high-end ghost town feel was clinging on the neighborhood. And as I made my way to the White Horse Tavern to see if the literary specters were out and howling; but that bar closed at midnight.

    So, I hailed a cab, and told the driver my cross streets in Harlem, which he accepted without complaint. I expected a fast ride up the West Side Highway, but at 14th street he headed up 10th Avenue, and we rolled quickly up the length of Manhattan. From 23rd Street, we ran non-stop, hitting every green light – it felt like a Christmas Miracle, but it could be due to no traffic at 1am. Finally, we were felled by the intersection at 123rd of all places, where our luck ran out, and we were held by a red.

    It has been very hard living in the City for the past two years, pretty much stuck in our neighborhood. Sometimes I forget how much I like it here. A place that can fill you with excited energy one moment, and try to break you down the next. But it is still a place I love living in.

  • Ghost Locations of Creativity

    Do you know who Donald Barthelme is?

    I had no idea who he was until 2003. That was the year I was directing “Six Degrees of Separation” as my senior project in college. There is a line towards the end of the play where the character Paul references Donald Barthelme’s obituary in the New York Times, saying;

    Paul: Did you see Donald Barthelme’s obituary? He said collage was the art form of the 20th century.

    As a dutiful director, I researched Donald Barthelme and his stories, all the while spending time thinking how Paul, who was running from the police, still took the time to read the obituary section of The Times, and contemplate art and collage, and how that affects the meaning of his life.

    A few years later, I read a review in The Times book section about a new biography on Donald Barthelme, titled “Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme.” The review intrigued me, so I went out and bought a copy of the book. Sadly, it sat on my shelf for about six years. I know this because, when I did pick the biography up, it was right after the birth of my daughter, and I would read it as I rocked her to sleep. I then went out and got a copy of “Sixty Stories,” to keep my envelopment in his work.

    I recommend the biography, clearly. There are many great insights, and Tracy Daugherty does a very good job of setting up the context of the world around Donald; the art world of the early 60’s, how The New Yorker treated their writers, and what The Village used to be like – overflowing with writers and eccentric people. The book, even gave Barthelme’s address off of 11th Street, which happened to be seven blocks from where I worked at the time. I took an extended lunch break from work one day, and walked down to Donald’s old block. It had only been about 25 years since his death, and the neighborhood was nothing like it used to be in his day, at least what I learned from his biography. I stood across the street looking at his old building that housed his apartment, feeling a little like the stalker of a ghost. I don’t know what I was expecting to feeling by being out front, but I was curious to see a place of creation; The location where stories I loved were first pounded out on a typewriter. Maybe it was a pilgrimage, but it felt like I was trying to say hello to a friend.