A PORTRAIT OF MY GRANDMOTHER

The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

– Homer

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

– Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

She stands tall and wiry at the window. Her hair still thick short curls as they had been when she met my grandfather sixty years ago at a party in Oxford, when she was the protégé of a famous Austrian sculptor, when she was 18.

Her face now beautifully lined. Cracked like the Australian outback. Skin that I wished I could run my fingers over but for the icy cool blue eyes that stare back at you. Always a tight leather belt clinched at the waist with a smooth brass buckle holding in a small flat belly that had borne five children.

In the small little dining room is a large picture of the Dali Lama smiling forgivingly. Around are many small sculptures, smooth bronze and stone, all of them perfectly displayed. Not a place one lived would live in, the table a museum of a life, photos and ornaments take the place of plates and cups. And postcards of famous artists line the walls with their names labeled neatly underneath in tight handwriting.

She is watching a robin. It hops and takes flight to the next branch of the magnolia tree in the garden below. It’s cheerful chat comes up through the window and my grandmother smiles. The day is indefinable. Grey and mild, it could be any day. And to her it is. You see, my grandmother doesn’t know about time. She doesn’t know anything. She exists in a world of NOW.

A few days back I had to dismantle an artist’s studio. We moved my grandmother out for a week and took down every paintbrush and chisel from the room to make space for a live-in care worker. The layers of thirty years of creative harvesting in this small room at the top of her house now cleared and neatly packed away in the attic. She knows nothing. And she will never know. When she does remember the fear engulfs her, in her lucidity she remembers that days, weeks and eventually months have been lost and she is floating in a world of light and dark.

I’m not sure if this clear out is betrayal or helping her forget her former self. To me she is still grand and terrifying and beautiful, in fact more beautiful because she has left behind the terrors and insecurities of this world. She is like the little robin dancing from one branch to the next with no care in the world, often smiling to herself about an old deep memory of when she was truly happy.

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.

***

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-

CHRISTMAS FEVER

pictures by Adam Walker

A fever burns up in my head as the snow is finally falling breathlessly around Ocean Parkway. I cough and splutter between shuffles to the kitchen to boil up a fresh cup of green tea and shuffle back to bed to read my a book or jot down an idea.

But this is not a sympathy post by all means. This is to tell you what a real Christmas is like on the borders of Little Russia.

Luckily I found a friend who a friend who matched my self imposed solace and we decided to cycle down to Coney Island. We wandered along the boardwalk gawping at the freaks and gangsters that seem to populate this area in such arctic conditions. The sea was wide and dark and I could see the snow cloud moving across the Atlantic. There were groups of Russian men smoking and fishing on the pier and young families chasing birds and riding bikes and a few bikers in their leather chaps and tasseled jackets wandering and taking pictures.

In summer this place is packed full of city dwellers escaping the heat and others seeking the dark revels of a seaside resort. It has such an eery quality to it. The huge fun fair wheel still and looming over the desolate beach. The rides coated in bubble wrap to protect from frost and birds. Everything boarded up, shuttered pulled tightly down. Everything facing you silent. Even the people look at you silently, not knowing your language and surprised that you'd be here at such a time.

We stopped by a deli on the way to the station to grab a Christmas lunch bagel and off we went to the cinema. The film we watched was True Grit, the new Cohen Brothers film-

To most of you who enjoyed a traditional Christmas with lots of meat and potatoes and sizzling christmas pud and port and the whole deal must think that I had a pretty unconventional festive day. But alas, this way of celebrating is past down the generations in the Jewish community (as I have been told) as the only way to celebrate his lord's birthday. And of course the film must be followed by a Chinese takeout which we added just for good measure.

La Radio

(Me and Stuart, so you get the picture.....sorry Stuart.)

Just a really quick one- A lovely Mr Stuart Rogers let me loose on his radio show All Over the Shop on East Village Radio which he normally shares with the charming Ben and I had to share it with you.

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/shows/nowplaying.aspx?contentid=1214&showid=97796

All you need to do is follow this link above and click on Dec 18th posting.

You have to picture it, I'd been on the Four Loko all night with the Americans at a warehouse party where they had people on homemade fairground contraptions and they only played 90's drum and bass. And I was feeling very shaky and a little sorry for myself. The studio is a shop front in the east village with a wide glass front so we could watch the freaks pass whilst pumping our fists to our favorite tunes.

Me and Stuart rocked on for two hours, we even got a double helping of M.I.A. in there.

One of the best ways to cure a hangover.

Keeping it Christmas. x

Patchwork city

This city is born of opportunity and discovery, hence why eight million people have turned up here. The history of this place is so near you can almost touch it. You ask people where they are from and no one is an American, they are Scottish or French or Caribbean or Dutch or Mexican. Everyone is excited about being here. Freshness and a strange trust exudes from the faces of the people. It is a hard city, admittedly, but with the world at your fingertips who couldn’t be excited?

I have been inundated with recommendations from friends of names and numbers of their various New York acquaintances. Everyone has a friend in NY it seems. It’s as if you are being set out on a blind date. You arrange a place, a time, ‘Yes, I’ll be wearing a red scarf, holding a rose, etc, etc.’ And they are always thrilling. Suddenly realize that you don’t know this person from Adam, you might not even get on. What if you have nothing to say to each other?

And so on the eve of one of these ‘dates’ I was readying myself to go and meet her for dinner when I had a call. It was from another London set-up who I’ve been trying to contact since I arrived. He was frantic on the phone with news of a secret gig of Neil Young in some dive in Brooklyn that night. Of course, you do not turn down an offer of this kind so I dragged the first ‘date’ along too.

But now I have two strangers who I am meeting for the first time together, this could be a disaster. Luckily the second date was late and I had just enough time to catch a little bit of history from the first before Neil entered the stage.

He was backing his wife Pegi Young, who at apparently 50, was just starting out her career as a musician. The music was somewhat ballsy and a little brash at times. Neil Young kept in the shadows moodily playing back-up with the rest of the ‘Survivors’ that were supporting her. The final song ‘Dog House’ was met with cheers and howls when they invited another crony up on stage who looked like something in between Pasty from Ab Fab and Ozzy Ozbourne.

But the real excitement came when Bert Jansch entered the stage. His jeans were low slung like a teenage boy but his voice and guitar was like something I’ve never heard. From the first refrain my heart was all a-shudder, even when he played a song about Pete Doherty. There was such sensitivity about watching a man play such delicate songs. His fragility might have something to do with his recent recovery from cancer.

The separate ‘dates’ did meet finally and did get on, though definitely very different people, but that is New York right?

What I realized listening to Bert Jansch play was that music transcends history. Just like New York, the essence and the soul of the place and the music is the same who ever enters it, who ever plays it. Bert sings songs older than anyone alive and they still ring true. This city is seeped in a newness that I don’t think will ever go away. The feeling of adventure and opportunity.