November 22, 2004
Weekly Events
Museums
I’ll go to the new MoMA and I’ll be sure to admire the recessed black edging. Afterwards I’ll wait to say “that black line made me think of Manet’s Olympia,” but the right time won’t come up in conversation so I’ll just walk around thinking that.
Readings
I’ll consider going to a lecture or a reading, but instead I’ll read the New York Times articles about readings. I’ll be brought to tears twice by an overtly maudlin poem in a two weeks old New Yorker. I’ll read Kafka on the Beach on the subway, self-consciously. I’ll go to Barnes and Noble and consider the co-op placement and jacket design of books I will never read. I will try and remember a line I once read about that: books like mirrors that you will never be reflected in again... or something.
Lectures
I’ll take pictures of a dismembered mannequin on a park bench with my cell phone. I’ll listen to the Arcade Fire and download songs by the Mountain Goats. At work I’ll accidentally click through to pictures of horrifically wounded Iraqis. Then I will write a long involved email and cc three people on it and while I’m waiting for their response I’ll download ringtones from Eddie Izzard’s website. I’ll wonder where the soul fits into all of this.
Music
I’ll wonder if things would be different for me if I had an I-pod. I’ll surf the web, drink a bottle of Rebel Beer, delete history, listen some more to Arcade Fire because goddamn they are good, so good it makes me want to be a teenager again so that album could be a whole universe of steam-heated garden levels with homemade curtains and cigarettes, but if you're reading this you already know that... total entertainment awareness and all that.
Movies
I’ll consider renting the Passion of the Christ with Movies on Demand, but I won't for fear that it might actually... you know ... work. Instead I’ll consider changing medications.
Nightlife
I’ll sit on the subway and worry that this city is trying make me go away, the drunk guy on the edge of the couch at the end of party. I’ll call New York a fucking asshole, stagger home, have trouble with the keys on the way in.
Recommended
After work I’ll go walk through the park. It is all couples and dog-walkers there. Down at the fountain Chinese wedding parties will line up to have their picture taken underneath the angel. It will be cold and blustery and they will be in their ceremonial outfits, but when the shutter goes they will look natural and happy.
