Follow The Yellow Brick Road

(You have to read this in the mirror, technology won't let me flip the photo, but the message is apt.)

First off before I forget you can hear a guest mix that I did on a friends blog Chip's Blips.

http://chipsblips.blogspot.com/2011/01/aquila-roses-blips-january-2011.html

It's some music I have been vibing to while I've been away. This can aid you through my latest blog.

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Tears stung my eyes as the aircraft ripped up into the night sky, up up through the heavy mist and lights. There is such a thrill of the pure blast of engine and wheels, the seemingly impossible lift of around 200 tons of metal. We sail up past those streets that had become my school, every corner a lesson, past the bright and disheveled island, the cracked sidewalks and magnificent towers. I looked down at my feet and two ruby slippers shone back at me.

For me New York was my emerald city. I had gone on a journey to get home, but no home in the obvious sense, home is a place you have to find within. I guess that is the truly inevitable answer you get from travelling. That no matter where you go or who you are with you will always meet yourself standing in the reflection, whether it is within the frame of a beautiful gilded mirror of a stately hotel or a muddied pool on a cold wide street.

One always has expectations, a mission to accomplish. My plan was to find me a Wizard, I had heard that they could make you a star. I collected some incredible companions along the way. One needed courage to live in that city alone and brilliantly and we found it for her in a beautiful apartment in Brooklyn and with late night pizza dates with street artists. Someone who needed a heart and we showed him how to love on subways and in the backrooms of East Village bars. Another who needed a brain and we all learnt with her through the galleries of Chelsea and in the books in my favorite bookstore on Crosby Street. We fought the witches together who drove taxis and took us down the wrong streets, who shouted at us, who stole our money. And when I finally did find a Wizard, he turned out to be just a magician, gesticulating wildly behind the smoke in coffee cups and the twinkling lights of the open mics.

So as I set out on my next adventure, back to a city that I thought I knew so well, I opened my eyes a little wider. The streets are so familiar here in London, the accents so dear, and the rudeness so sweet. I feel my world has transformed. I can look with eyes of a stranger at the loud cockney woman drunk and raving about politics on the night bus home, or the haphazard patterns of the streets and bricks and metal and glass and the forever stream of bikes. Because this is a journey that never ends.

F Train Ride

I’ve been a magpie for the last few days. Wandering round the city collecting shiny golden glittering things. Images, conversations, sounds, lullaby’s, shapes between people on the subway.

My favorite place right now is the subway. Sitting amongst the changing flow of people. I am living so far out from the city that I can experience the social demographic to extremes. When you get on the subway at Avenue U there are mainly Russians in the huge fur coats and Hasidic Jews with tall hats and curls. The Russian women are always so well turned out with perfect hair, plump in their seats. The Hasidic Jews, more than often only men and boys pouring over the Torah or dozing on their way to school. Everyone looks at me strangely, as I fit in better in Soho or the East Village.

These people normally filter off by Bay Parkway, leaving with one more inquisitive glare off to do what ever they do. Bay Parkway is where the graves stretch out either side of the station, the graveyard is huge and empty of life and so intriguing. Now these graves are covered in snow, quiet and cold.

The houses are plaid with wood in the true American suburban way, many different colours and shapes, with porches and with statement garages. They are uniform in their want for originality. This is so up until Church Avenue where the train rises and ducks down into the ground and leaving the streets and the houses and gardens alone.

The train carriages slug through the white tiles of Church Avenue, Fort Hamilton Parkway, Prospect Park, 7^th Ave and then up up up on to the rocky stilts of 4^th Ave and 9^th Street.

This is where the houses break up and the industrial mess kicks in filling the landscape with piles of dirt and huge yards full of old cars and machinery. The train carries on up and round to Smith Street over the estuary. If you get off on this stop going back towards Coney Island you can see the whole of the New York City sky line brimming up out of the gloom with lights, so majestic. The train curls down and round like a rollercoaster back into the ground and there it stays under until I get off.

Next comes Carroll St with its cherry tiles adoring the station walls. The actual neighborhood is very nice, with perfect little bars and resturants. Lots of young families and perfectly Stoke Newington minus the Whole Foods. Then is Bergen St which is pretty much the same. Jay St Borough Hall starts to get more industrial and less friendly and then York St.

York Street is in the center of DUMBO, the new very cool part of Brooklyn. It sits right on the edge boasting a very NY feel. The buildings are suddenly tall and old and fill the sky with an air of importance. There is an incredible bar round the corner from the station called Pedro’s. Of course it’s a Mexican joint with sparkling hats attached to the ceilings and perfect bar staff. Pedro’s is the only thing interesting in DUMBO I think.

Then over the bridge and over the East River to East Broadway and then Delancey Street where the wide road takes you back over the East River and China Town meets the Lower East Side. This is where Ludlow and Orchard Street start.

Where I took my first New York taxi cab with an Icelandic raver to a Balkan bar and drank sangria on a swing. Where I sat in a bar quietly reading my book to be befriended by not only the barman and his musician friend, but ending up making friends with the whole establishment. Where last night I went to see Jeffery Lewis, one of the legends of the Lower East Side, do a little gig with some friends in The Cake Shop. Where I met a great musician in Pianos from a band called Via Audio who you all should go and look up now and listen to. Where I sat with a friend on Christmas Eve weary with anticipation to then be caught by a street artist who drew cocks with the most sincere sales pitch that we actually bought one. Where I saw some of the best and worst music in the Sidewalk café open mic. Where on New Years day I fell upon a poetry reading which included a woman called Supolo, who’s words make me cry and die with joy inside. And there are so many other stories about the Lower East Side and the East Village that I could tell you. But for now I will take you off the train and off the street. And leave you with a song.

1.1.11

It’s as if the clock has been reset. We move through the city in a daze blinking. The diaries are blank and fresh and time seems infinite.

We jumped and threw our arms in the air and took to the table-tops and the doorways and made friends with strangers and sung all the way home and danced for the magic of 2010 and the new that we are entering.

The countdown brought the thought of my inevitable return to London. The bubble is slowly deflating around my head and the party will be over so soon.

But this is not the time to get nostalgic just yet. I’d like to sum up my year in a little list (if you click on the words they link you to an illustration)…

Gaggle

Pembridge Villas

Soho Theatre

Job Centre

Caledonian road

The Mall Tavern

Women’s Library

Camden Crawl

Election

Bush Hall

Festival tour

BBC Switch

Bike

Mr and Mrs Jess(ie)

Trace

The Correspondents

Norfolk

Germany tour

New York…

So here I am, and what a big old year that was. Let’s hope that the next year gives as much joy and lessons as the last. For now I’d like to share with you one of my favorite films and one of my favorite songs because I am too sad to write about this city that I have fallen in love with-