Generation Landslide

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

The summer intern season is winding down and it has left me melancholy, as usual. Only the best, brightest and well-connected are granted internships at the investment banks in Manhattan. They’re the fortunate sons and daughters of well-heeled parents. Many of them, through no fault of their own, are blissfully unaware that they were found under a golden cabbage leaf. This is not to imply they’re lazy. They are not. They’re hard working and dedicated. In order to land an internship, they have to prove their mettle. But since they’re selected from the best schools, that’s a foregone conclusion.

Because I work in an open-architecture environment, I am privy to their phone conversations and chats with fellow interns. Academia and success is all they’ve ever known. They’re too young to have lost a job or suffer a serious setback. It sounds like many of them haven’t even enjoyed a proper heartbreak yet. An intern assigned to our group is an NYU student (tuition is +/- $60,000/year). He spends his weekends in the Hamptons summer rental his father arranged for him—a reward for landing the internship. He’s not boastful or smug about it. He’s a good-looking kid (kid!) and seems to have an endless parade of pretty young things with flat stomachs visiting his desk trying to curry his favor.

The yellow brick road is stretched out before him. I’ve carved out a pretty decent life with the tools that were available, but the types of opportunities they take for granted are unimaginable to me. My future no longer carries an air of mystery or boundless possibility. They make me feel old and lacking in accomplishment.

He hath a certain beauty in his life
That makes mine ugly.

Othello
Wm. Shakespeare

Spent some time feeling inferior
Standing in front of my mirror

Every Picture Tells a Story
Rod Stewart

* * *

I’ll tell you one thing I don’t envy—their pathetic addiction to mobile phones. It’s the adult version of a sippy cup. While visiting the county fair in Ohio last week, I was watching The Daughters on the bumper cars. A kid was reading text messages while in the middle of his bumper car ride. Sounds ridiculous but here’s photographic proof:

He can’t disengage from his phone long enough to enjoy a proper bashing on the bumper cars. Do you know what’s even sadder? ANOTHER kid on the SAME ride who placed a phone call while driving the car!

They’ve always said that cell phones and driving are a hazardous mix but I suppose it’s irrelevant here. Last Sunday, my bride was in a minor fender bender. She was waiting for the light to change and in her rear view mirror, she saw the car behind her slowly creeping up. Its driver, a young girl, was yapping away on her phone. Bump. They got out of the car and she denied being on the phone. My bride gave her the old “don’t lie to me” and she immediately buckled and admitted fault. She got her driver’s license on Friday. It took her less than 48 hours to get in an accident because she was on the phone.

* * *

A boy und his mutt. Voof.

Step into the light. All are welcome!

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

I’ve heard architect snobs snidly refer to the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum as a parking ramp. It features a floor that gradually winds up six stories. Exhibits are mounted along the length of the walk (in the case below, a Kandinsky retrospective).

The same idiots who call the rotunda a parking ramp have referred to the exterior as a giant toilet bowl. I think the building is beautiful, inside and out.

James Turrell uses the rotunda as his canvas. He has worked since the late 1960’s with light as his primary medium. His installation, Aten Reign, is a brilliant example of how environmental art can envelope you. A white fabric scrim was installed in the rotunda and colored lights are projected onto it. Viewers are seated on the ground floor in seats that are angled up towards the rotunda, or they lay down on a huge futon in the center of the room.

One of its designers describes the work as a stack of five giant lampshades as seen from the inside.

The colors slowly move across the spectrum, the full cycle taking about 60 minutes. Each level is a different hue of the base color.

Lying down and starring into the slowly changing light is a meditative experience. The ground floor and visitors fade away. You’re pulled into the work and lose your sense of time and place.

None of these photos have been retouched in any way. It really does look this bizarre.

There are four other light pieces by Turrell in this exhibit, which I will post photos of later. They’re interesting, but they don’t have the breadth or impact of this main showcase piece. How could they?

There’s no limit to the amount of time you can spend in the rotunda. People wait patiently for a spot to open and when someone finally gets up to leave, they pounce. The exhibit is a huge hit, as you can imagine. If you’re a museum member, you can attend private “quiet hour” sessions after the museum closes. If you’ve always been curious about psilocybin mushrooms, this might be a good place to experiment.

I am highly susceptible to this sort of spectacle. I willingly give myself over to the artist’s vision. It took several minutes but I lost myself in the piece/peace. I forgot my troubles and floated up into the slowly-changing colors. To enhance the experience, I did what anyone who grew up in my generation would do:

Peek-a-boo, bitches. The exhibit runs through September 25th. Come to town and I’ll get you in for free. Don’t ask me how I can do it. Just be glad I can do it.

The latest from the Associated Press and my elevator

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

My office has elevator TV. Step into almost any lift in Manhattan and you’ll be greeted with a TV screen that broadcasts ads, news, sports and entertainment tidbits. They show pie charts from USA Today. I defy you to tear your eyes away from the screen as the car shoots up to your floor. You can’t. It’s insidious brilliance.

[Almost as insidious and brilliant as a cigarette campaign I saw at an ad agency I worked at many years ago. They went to local beaches and passed out rubber flip-flops for free. Embossed on the bottom were the Camel cigarette logo and image of Joe Camel (remember him?). People—kids—walked on the beach and left an impression in the sand. I saw photos of beaches COVERED with Camel logos and Joe Camel’s phallic face. They were called “Camel Tracks.”]

Elevator TV is broadcast by Captivate Network, which makes perfect sense because we’re captured like rats in a ticking trap. Cheeky bastards. They ran this news blip the other day from the AP wires:

It’s not funny. I’m not trying to imply it is. The man was murdered. But can you see how this all went down? A loudmouth American—a Texan, no less—drunkenly pushes his way onto the stage and wrestles the microphone away. Starts yelling into it. Feedback. The musicians, who probably take pride in their work, look on with contempt. One of them snaps, stab, stab, stab. Lights out. If you’re a guest in a foreign nation, mind your manners, pardner. Giddy up.

I wish I’d invented elevator TV. I wouldn’t be typing this from a coffee shop at 7:09 a.m. before facing the Captivate Network. I’d be typing it from a beach in Tahiti sometime after 2:00 p.m.

* * *

Speaking of coffee shops, just look at this poor bastard sitting next to me.

He was simultaneously juggling three—three—devices; a laptop, an iPad and an iPhone. Wasn’t the promise of new technology to set us free and simplify our lives? What a lie THAT turned out to be! After I watched this sorry show, I meditated on leaving my iPhone at home for one day. Going an entire 24 hours without touching it. Do you know what? I have a modicum of self-awareness and I don’t think I can do it! Could you? Seriously. Could you? We should all try it as an experiment. Verizon and AT&T won’t like this idea one bit.

* * *

Coco and some of her neighborhood pals. They really do enjoy each others company, all appearances to the contrary.

* * *

If you are an old man thinking of taking early retirement, you should read King Lear first. If you are a middle-aged man thinking of marrying a younger woman, consult Molière before-hand. If you are a young man and you think that love will last forever, you might wan to take a gander at Wuthering Heights before making any long-range plans.

Joe Queenan
One for the Books

Nuclear recycling

Posted on July 27, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

I was reluctant to write a post about Ghanaian contemporary artist El Anatsui’s solo show at the Brooklyn Museum, Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui, fearing that my lame photos and prose wouldn’t capture its freakish, alive spirit. His medium is discarded bottle caps, bands and found objects. He turns them into giant, fluid, flowing works. He gathers thousands of pieces like this:

And connects them together with copper wire to create stunning curtains like this:

This is some of the most painstaking work I’ve ever seen. It’s like pointillism except your fingers bleed. Where does his ambition come from? He connects flattened caps together with a painstaking specificity…

…to create splashes of color and texture. Look how this piece spills onto the floor.

Here he collected the tops of tins…

…to create long, snake-like sculptures that ooze across the floor and up the wall.

From a distance, the pieces hanging on the wall look like great swaths of multi-colored fabric. You want to reach out and caress it. Closer inspection reveals its sharp edges and copper wiring, not soft to the touch.

Behind a curtain of pop top rings.

* * *

Summer is half over. Do you guys call them lightning bugs or fireflies? It’s a regional preference. Do you call it a bucket or a pail? Pop or soda? The Daughters gather them up in our back yard and I always insist they release them. They’re not permitted to stuff them into jars. They’re such beautiful, innocent, harmless creatures. Both The Daughters and the fireflies. I wouldn’t keep either one imprisoned.

* * *

This pic is raw, straight from my iPhone. No Photoshopping, no Camera+, no Picoli—nothing. The technology behind this astonishes me. Some guy wrote a code that allows this to happen. Man, I’ll never be that smart.

My quasi-liberal bent is sorely tested

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Exile on Pain Street

ALBANY—The New York State Senate has passed the “Public Assistance Integrity Act,” that would prohibit welfare recipients from using cash assistance for tobacco, alcoholic beverages, lottery tickets or gambling.

Waitaminute. Are you telling me that people are using food stamps to buy lotto tickets?

Let me establish my bona fides. When dear old dad decided to bail out because being a dad wasn’t his thing, man, we went on food stamps for a brief period of time. Additionally, Fr. Tulley from St. John Bosco arranged a few food drops. Overnight, my mom went from housewife to breadwinner. She hustled and got a job at an office supply store and got us off food stamps as quickly as possible. This all occurred during my formative years and needing a hand-out was a grievous humiliation that I used to define who I was for a long time.

It depresses me a little to think people are gaming the system in this way. I can almost understand tobacco and alcohol because those are addictions and when you have a substance addiction, you’re not going to let a little thing like an impropriety stand in the way of getting what you need. But lotto tickets?

I am a naïve waif to be surprised by all this. You can take the boy out of Ohio but, etc. I am in favor of this law. Merchants can now refuse to sell these items to customers who are paying with food stamps. Does that make me heartless or (shudder) conservative? Christ, I hope not. I don’t want to be either.

* * *

The New York Times and CNN have been following the story of the Norwegian ex-pat in Dubai who went to the police after being raped and was promptly sentenced to 16 months in prison for illicit sex outside of marriage and alcohol consumption. It doesn’t do much for my opinion of Islamic law and even less for Dubai, which is apparently a gilded cage and a hell-hole for women.

I meditated on this. I’m a tolerant guy but reading stories about Muslims who immigrate to Western countries and then wall themselves in and refuse to follow the rules of law when they conflict with their cultural or religious beliefs doesn’t give me warm feelings. It makes me wonder why they’d want to be here in the first place.

Dubai is an appalling place but everyone going there knows the rules. As egregious as they are, should they to be condemned for enforcing their laws any more than we are for enforcing ours? They have since issued a pardon, but a pardon implies she’s guilty of the crimes charged. I hope they realize how foolish they look.

* * *

It’s helpful for small children if the first book that grabs their attention is also the first book that breaks their heart. It gets them in the mood for Romeo and Juliet, Ethan Frome, marriage, life.

Joe Queenan
One For The Books

Summer is half over.

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