I have torn myself away from the hotel room TV, where a morbidly obese woman promises to read my fortune in Spanish for a small fee, to bring you this blog update on Madrid. A city of many domes. A city of many lovely parks. But mainly, a city preoccupied with football. Atletico Madrid played in the Copa Rey final against Seville while we were in town, losing 0-2, and afterwards shirtless lads were everywhere, apparently being ashamed to wear their jerseys. Two days after we headed north the city was to host the UEFA Champions League final, and the volume of advertising for this event was truly breathtaking. MasterCard were the major sponsor, with their tagline being translated from "Priceless" to "no tiene precio": "no it has price" (or, "it has no price" if you're not being a smart arse). At the time of writing the result of this match was unknown, but it is likely that the profits of all involved were ensured.
Madrid has many grand buildings but is apparently not actually that old, so these building are nice and everything but don't really exercise this viewer. They are also very clean, adding to the lack of grit, or character, or some other ethereal quality that I can't quite put my finger on. It is still a lovely place to stroll for a couple of days, and the aforementioned parks are genuinely lovely, decorated with grand royal mausoleums and inexplicable crystal palaces (just the one crystal palace actually). Drinking sherry and nibbling little serves of tasty stuff (blood sausage with cute little fried eggs, chorizo, salmon, jamon, manchego cheese) is another of the tremendously enjoyable activities open to the tourist in Madrid, and we fulfilled our roles in this tradition enthusiastically.
The highlights were the Museo del Prado and an evening spent at a flamenco bar. The Prado took up nearly a whole day and contained more than enough beauty to keep an ignoramus like me entertained for the whole time, despite wobbly legs. It tracked the development of Spanish art and focussed on the three big names of El Greco, Velasquez, and Goya, while perhaps showing a few too many portraits of King Felipe IV, who was obviously terribly vain and looks a right sour bastard. Thanks to Spain's past occupation of Belgium and the Netherlands it also houses a fantastic range of Flemish art. Stolen but beautiful.
The flamenco was in a bar/restaurant called Casa Patas, and though I whinged about the €31 cover charge beforehand I will never mention it again. The show was superb. Three singers and two guitarists performed a brief opening musical number before the two dancers come out to perform together, after which they each did a solo dance in between more singing and strumming. Strumming is a hopelessly inadequate word for what the guitarists were doing, and at times I thought I could hear this style of music's influence over more mainstream rock and pop. The singers sang incredibly high to my ear, but always in control and beautifully. They spasmed and twitched wildly as they sang; I wish I knew what they were singing about but just watching them was emotionally charged enough. The dancers performed alone for about 15 minutes each, and never seemed to be repeating moves and maintained a tremendous energy throughout. Their footwork on the (hopefully strongly reinforced) stage pushed Mel to comment that the quality of the dance could probably be accurately measured with a seismograph. One of the elements I enjoyed most was the intimate interaction between the players; all watched the others for cues but also seemed to enjoy the others' performances and shouted encouragement often, adding to the already engaging energy. The rest of the audience seemed to agree with us and the show ended to wild applause.
We headed north to the province of Castilla y Leon and specifically to the city of Avila, full of 12th to 18th century religious buildings and surrounded by a 30 metre high defensive wall made more charming by the hundreds of swallows constantly flying around it and disappearing into small holes in the sides. Larger birds nested on the tops of the church spires and bell towers, admirably enduring the loud and regular ringing of the bells. The ringing bells provided a pleasant soundtrack while we strolled through the quiet olde world streets.
One night we found ourselves in a tapas bar where we watched the UEFA Champions League final. The walls were lined with photographs of the proprietor with numerous matadors, along with other prints and shots on the bullfighting theme. We had watched some bullfighting on the TV in another bar and had not enjoyed it one bit. On the evening news another night we saw footage of a bull winning, quite horribly injuring the matador by goring him through the face. Bravo bull I say. Back in the Avila bar, the proprietor himself sat at the bar with a younger bloke handling the customer service. Trays of "deliciosos" lined the bar behind glass: prawns, clams, blood sausage, and other things that may or may not have been made of organs. We ate some tiny plates of octopus and tortilla. Some distinguished looking old fellas, some of whom could be recognized from the wall photos, came in to watch the football and yarn conspiratorially with the boys at work. One was served a single mussel on a potato chip as he sat down at the bar. The young guy behind the bar regularly adjusted the contents of the food trays with his bare hands and then blew his nose and wiped some remnants off his chin with the same hands. Internazionale FC (Milan) beat Bayern Munchen in the football, and although we were obviously cheering for Inter the barman asked us as we left if we were German. I grasped the opportunity: "Nein!", I replied. I actually only thought of saying that just now, but it would have been funny huh?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Cardiff in Welsh is Caerdydd
In the middle of our London visit we took a train to Cardiff to stay with a friend of mine, a dentist whose wish to work in diverse locales improbably took him to Alice Springs a few years ago, where we met. After we briefly recapped our famous victory in the Alice indoor soccer competition back in '06 he toured us around Cardiff's sites. This activity being completed within two hours we retired to a licensed premises. On the second day we slept in and then travelled to Big Pit, a former coal mine and now museum, arriving late after having an argument with the satellite navigation lady (she won, she's so infuriatingly assertive and sure of herself). Again connections were made between vague understandings: "Wales" and "mining" existed in my mind quite close to each other but without being explicitly connected until now. This was once the biggest coal exporter in the world. On the way in we saw an old photo of Margaret Thatcher holding a canary with some miners around her; some wag had drawn on a moustache on her that had been carefully but not quite completely subsequently erased. The earnest miner (a great enthusiast of the Welsh Cobb breed of horse; he admonished a school girl in our group who said she had one but didn't take it to jumping competitions, thus wasting it's great talent) that took us down the shaft for the tour told us that the two retired pet canaries upstairs were named Arthur and Maggie, but we weren't to say their surnames because they brought bad luck, their two namesakes having destroyed the British mining industry. He went on to say that all miners should get a day off "when she goes", and that he would be there, "singin' me lungs out".
After the enjoyable and informative tour of the shaft we took in the miners' showers (an unusual thing to tour I thought) and a museum. We headed off to walk up the tallest mountain in South Wales, just as a thick fog descended to obliterate what our host assured us was a lovely view. After taking some photos of the fog we descended and it began to lift. We retired to a licensed premises. I forced our party to stop in at a pub with karaoke, as well as carpet whose pattern had been obliterated everywhere but the very corners of the room and immediately around supportive pillars. Judging by the looks on their faces just being in this venue caused our local friends great pain but I hope my performance of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" was worth it.
We left Wales for Bath in western England, where our London host was celebrating her 30th birthday at her parent's house. Because we were staying two nights we were given the best guest room in the house (in a house that sleeps 16 comfortably). It is to date the best room of the trip, with private bathroom and a view over a lovely green English valley, with a corner of Georgian Bath visible in the distance. The party was a triumph of complicated catering, and the presence of an Aga oven in the kitchen plunged me into sentimental reflection on my grandmother's former home, while also enabling me to curry favour with the host by asking her about her kitchen renovation. We played croquet on the lawn, which as an Australian I would have obviously won had I not had to be teamed up with English people. I further flew the flag by opening a beer just as everyone else went to bed, although this may have reversed my previous favoritism with the host.
The following day we took in the Roman Baths, a museum built over the site of the remains of a 1st and 2nd century Roman leisure centre, enjoyed lunch in a ye olde pub, and were ferried around the district by our host with a detailed tour of nearby towns and buildings of interest. We returned home where his mood was improved by England spanking Australia in the 20-20 World Cup Final, which he could have rubbed in more but was discouraged by my attitude of indifference, which was only slightly put on. We returned to London for one more night in a dreadfully overpriced hostel and lay awake wondering if we were going to be able to dodge British Airways strikes and Icelandic volcanic ash to get to Spain. We're sick of speaking English.
After the enjoyable and informative tour of the shaft we took in the miners' showers (an unusual thing to tour I thought) and a museum. We headed off to walk up the tallest mountain in South Wales, just as a thick fog descended to obliterate what our host assured us was a lovely view. After taking some photos of the fog we descended and it began to lift. We retired to a licensed premises. I forced our party to stop in at a pub with karaoke, as well as carpet whose pattern had been obliterated everywhere but the very corners of the room and immediately around supportive pillars. Judging by the looks on their faces just being in this venue caused our local friends great pain but I hope my performance of "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" was worth it.
We left Wales for Bath in western England, where our London host was celebrating her 30th birthday at her parent's house. Because we were staying two nights we were given the best guest room in the house (in a house that sleeps 16 comfortably). It is to date the best room of the trip, with private bathroom and a view over a lovely green English valley, with a corner of Georgian Bath visible in the distance. The party was a triumph of complicated catering, and the presence of an Aga oven in the kitchen plunged me into sentimental reflection on my grandmother's former home, while also enabling me to curry favour with the host by asking her about her kitchen renovation. We played croquet on the lawn, which as an Australian I would have obviously won had I not had to be teamed up with English people. I further flew the flag by opening a beer just as everyone else went to bed, although this may have reversed my previous favoritism with the host.
The following day we took in the Roman Baths, a museum built over the site of the remains of a 1st and 2nd century Roman leisure centre, enjoyed lunch in a ye olde pub, and were ferried around the district by our host with a detailed tour of nearby towns and buildings of interest. We returned home where his mood was improved by England spanking Australia in the 20-20 World Cup Final, which he could have rubbed in more but was discouraged by my attitude of indifference, which was only slightly put on. We returned to London for one more night in a dreadfully overpriced hostel and lay awake wondering if we were going to be able to dodge British Airways strikes and Icelandic volcanic ash to get to Spain. We're sick of speaking English.
The great fire of ...; ... Calling; I'm in ... Still; etc.
We arrived in London on a Friday night and caught the train from Heathrow into the city. My maturity was immediately under pressure as the ultimate destination of our train was called Cockfosters. I opened the guide book; Spitalfields leapt off the page. I let Mel handle the planning from there.
As with New York, London is already known to us through place names: I have comprehensively bored our hosts pointing out locations that are also Australian Group 1 winning racehorses (Shaftesbury Avenue, Blackfriars, Kensington Palace, etc). The less said about Monopoly the better. Mel and I have both already visited here, so it wasn't necessarily one of our most anticipated stops. Having now left for Spain, we have both commented on how surprised we've been by how much we enjoyed it.
Firstly, we stayed with friends. Oh! The impossible luxury of a cobbled together bed on a living room floor! To be able to prepare our own breakfast in a private kitchen! To be able to hear the nearby nightclub's thumping beats from the bathroom! Yes, perhaps this latter situation was less desirable, but it tells of the excellent location of our hosts' apartment right in the middle of Soho. We lounged about a bit before remembering we were tourists and taking off to stroll through the city, taking in the magnificent St Pauls Cathedral and Southbank before the inevitable visit to Harrods and Buckingham Palace. On a Saturday night we turned away from the disco below and took advantage of our new domesticity with take-away food and a video (Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie's lips constantly exaggerated by bright red lipstick, even while receiving electro-convulsive therapy in an asylum; it was dreadful). The following night we took a half hour flight on the London Eye, enjoying superb views of the Thames and the city at sunset, including the offices of MI5 and 6 (as pointed out by our sightseeing brochure). Aren't they supposed to be secret organizations?
We headed to the Tower of London and were led around the bloody history of the British crown by a jolly Beefeater with an endless supply of sexist gags and digs at Americans and Australians ("to all Americans, I promise to speak slowly; to all Australians...welcome home"). We saw the spot where Ann Boleyn was romantically proposed to by Henry VIII, and the spot where she was later romantically beheaded. This spot was notable for a totally out-of-place modern glass sculpture of a cushion commemorating Ann and the other unfortunates who were relieved of their heads in the tower, their executions being too sensitive to perform up the street in front of the public. The following day we took in the National Gallery, an endless parade of masterpieces and advertisements for Ovid's Metamorphoses, the inspiration for almost every non-religious painting in there. Except, that is, for the paintings on the most important topic of all: racehorses. I'm not sure galleries and museums figured at all in my original inspiration for taking this trip, but having now had the chance to see multiple masterpieces by names previously only vaguely known to me has been an unexpectedly moving highlight. We also checked out the Tate Modern and picked out some genuine inspiration amongst a heap of impenetrable abstract stuff (although, gasp!, they did have a Jackson Pollock that I actually saw something in), avoiding the videos of people screaming at each other and huge sculptures of piles of mud. At the risk of sounding conservative, give me a bowl of apples and an artfully arranged dead duck on a table any day over that.
London looked pretty flash and confident to me, more than when I last visited five years ago, a few public white elephants (the new Wembley, the O2 Arena, the Millenium Bridge) having since been put right. There were quite a few homeless people sleeping rough near where we were staying but the pubs and shops were full and bloody expensive. We observed someone buying a tiny £1200 dog at Harrods. Perhaps this last observation is not adequate to summarise the state of a whole economy but someone is obviously doing alright.
We were sad to leave but the continent beckons, and I've nearly forgotten how to order a latte in Spanish; to Madrid!
As with New York, London is already known to us through place names: I have comprehensively bored our hosts pointing out locations that are also Australian Group 1 winning racehorses (Shaftesbury Avenue, Blackfriars, Kensington Palace, etc). The less said about Monopoly the better. Mel and I have both already visited here, so it wasn't necessarily one of our most anticipated stops. Having now left for Spain, we have both commented on how surprised we've been by how much we enjoyed it.
Firstly, we stayed with friends. Oh! The impossible luxury of a cobbled together bed on a living room floor! To be able to prepare our own breakfast in a private kitchen! To be able to hear the nearby nightclub's thumping beats from the bathroom! Yes, perhaps this latter situation was less desirable, but it tells of the excellent location of our hosts' apartment right in the middle of Soho. We lounged about a bit before remembering we were tourists and taking off to stroll through the city, taking in the magnificent St Pauls Cathedral and Southbank before the inevitable visit to Harrods and Buckingham Palace. On a Saturday night we turned away from the disco below and took advantage of our new domesticity with take-away food and a video (Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie's lips constantly exaggerated by bright red lipstick, even while receiving electro-convulsive therapy in an asylum; it was dreadful). The following night we took a half hour flight on the London Eye, enjoying superb views of the Thames and the city at sunset, including the offices of MI5 and 6 (as pointed out by our sightseeing brochure). Aren't they supposed to be secret organizations?
We headed to the Tower of London and were led around the bloody history of the British crown by a jolly Beefeater with an endless supply of sexist gags and digs at Americans and Australians ("to all Americans, I promise to speak slowly; to all Australians...welcome home"). We saw the spot where Ann Boleyn was romantically proposed to by Henry VIII, and the spot where she was later romantically beheaded. This spot was notable for a totally out-of-place modern glass sculpture of a cushion commemorating Ann and the other unfortunates who were relieved of their heads in the tower, their executions being too sensitive to perform up the street in front of the public. The following day we took in the National Gallery, an endless parade of masterpieces and advertisements for Ovid's Metamorphoses, the inspiration for almost every non-religious painting in there. Except, that is, for the paintings on the most important topic of all: racehorses. I'm not sure galleries and museums figured at all in my original inspiration for taking this trip, but having now had the chance to see multiple masterpieces by names previously only vaguely known to me has been an unexpectedly moving highlight. We also checked out the Tate Modern and picked out some genuine inspiration amongst a heap of impenetrable abstract stuff (although, gasp!, they did have a Jackson Pollock that I actually saw something in), avoiding the videos of people screaming at each other and huge sculptures of piles of mud. At the risk of sounding conservative, give me a bowl of apples and an artfully arranged dead duck on a table any day over that.
London looked pretty flash and confident to me, more than when I last visited five years ago, a few public white elephants (the new Wembley, the O2 Arena, the Millenium Bridge) having since been put right. There were quite a few homeless people sleeping rough near where we were staying but the pubs and shops were full and bloody expensive. We observed someone buying a tiny £1200 dog at Harrods. Perhaps this last observation is not adequate to summarise the state of a whole economy but someone is obviously doing alright.
We were sad to leave but the continent beckons, and I've nearly forgotten how to order a latte in Spanish; to Madrid!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
New York cares
What can I say about New York that hasn't already been said? How can I follow up a sentence like that? Talk about making a noose for yourself.
I'll try again. The main thing about New York is, we know it all already. We know Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Lower East Side, the Upper West Side (although I was yet to put together the fact that this referred to the western side of upper Manhattan) etc. Everywhere we went was something somehow familiar. Walking around provided constant reminders of how this city is represented in and influences popular culture. This is where the terms "uptown" and "downtown" are literal (in a 2D way). Is there anyone who doesn't know the words to a song about New York?
Our accommodation was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, although a local we met at the Sao Paulo airport said "more like Bedford-Stuyvesant" (a much less desirable suburb) when we showed him on a map where it was. Williamsburg is touted as a very cool neighborhood with an increasing population of youthful "hipsters", and as has occurred previously on our trip this stereotype proved to be fairly accurate, as long as a hipsters looks like this:
Male: pale complexion, probably a few tatts, a haircut that no money can have been exchanged for, a t-shirt with some clever pop-culture reference, shabby jeans or cut off shorts that could be torn a bit or, much better, paint splattered (paint splattered is really in).
Female: tight jeans or short denim shorts worn over black tights, street shoes (Converse preferred, never new looking), numerous unusual piercings, thick glasses, and a short, angular haircut.
The hipsters seemed perfectly friendly, but one night when lost we were approached by a fashionable trench coat-wearing magazine employee (pointing at her business card "You know this magazine? It's pretty big in New York. I used to work at Vogue") named Rebecca Babcock Bradley, and when she said "hipster" it was with sharp disdain and fingers up for inverted commas. Let's assume this attitude was fashion-related.
We travelled into Manhatan every day for the endless sights. We took pictures of wind-buffeted pigeons on the Empire State Building. We looked up admiringly at the lights and signs of Times Square, surprised that we liked it so much when we should have been disgusted by it for various anti-consumerist and pro-environmental reasons (I will be keeping my detailed analysis of these internal conflicts to myself). We shopped endlessly (my view) but not enough (Mel's). We went to a Yankees game at their new stadium, marvelling at the impossible multitude of statistics (e.g. if desired, one can easily access a batter's figures solely against left-handed pitchers when runners are in scoring positions after the sixth inning) but scoffing at the price of beer and the lame automated chant prompts and scoreboard animations designed to artificially fire up the crowd. We stared at Van Gogh's "Starry Night" at the Museum of Modern Art (ignoring the loud statements of the obvious coming from the crowd circled around it) and established that the Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a lot of boring Picassos but has a lot of other stuff to recommend it. We saw the Lion King on Broadway and Avenue Q (featuring explicit sex scenes with puppets) off Broadway. We were about four blocks and a clumsy bomb-builder away from getting a terribly close look at a terrorist attack, and afterwards found that New York (hysterical media aside) just takes this kind of thing in it's stride. It didn't effect our time there at all.
One night we headed down to the East Village to the Village Vanguard to take in some jazz. This club is so famous that Jamie Cullum name drops it in the British Airways in-flight magazine, but it was fairly easy for us to get our names on the door to see the Heath brothers, famous as back ups to the big names. Jimmy Heath at one point said "this song was made famous by Miles Davis, and when I used to play with him we used to play it a lot. But then Miles left us". Just prior to the show we had spotted the actor James Spader entering, our first celebrity spotting! Again, I was surprised by my excitement at this because I'm pretty sure he's not on the A-list (although I'm not willing to speculate on his exact list position). We were so distracted by Mr Spader that when Jimmy Heath pointed out Tony Bennett about two metres away from us it was quite a shock. I'm no expert but the the music was wonderful and we returned to the street with a delicious New York buzz through us.
Late in our stay we attended the world famous (self-acclaimed) Apollo Theatre in Harlem, where Wednesday night is amateur night. The audience is encouraged to cheer the performers if they are good and to heartily boo them if they are not. Overwhelming boos bring on a lively fellow dressed as a policeman who will chase the contestant offstage. Only one performer suffered this fate the night we were there, a woman who bravely attempted a performance of spoken word. She seemed alright to we spoken word non-initiates. The most common style of performance was a young woman belting out some soulful ballad in the style of Beyonce or Whitney Houston. This got tiresome and as a result the winner was a beautiful girl who played a cello and sang an unusual bluesy number while third place went to a lad with significant attitude who could seemingly dislocate his own shoulders in the service of dance. Second was the best of the crooners.
The was definitely a lot of amateur talent on display and the host (the modestly named Talent) made a big deal of pumping up the number of legends that have been made on the Apollo stage. Michael Jackson and his brothers first came to prominence at the Apollo amateur night apparently. The best moment of the night played off this history. Talent was interrupted from introducing the next amateur by a message from the side of the stage. He looked right; his eyes went wide. He wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to the band leader, whose eyes went wide. Talent said "Folks, a brother is in the house and he's going to come on now, a genuine Apollo legend, with too many credits to mention here, you gonna get your money's worth, please give it up for Mr Stevie WONDER!!!!!!!". And then, holy shit, Stevie Wonder was led on to the stage to a keyboard where he sat down and played "Signed, Sealed, Delivered". We could not believe it but wanted so much to believe it that we went quite bananas (Tony Bennett who?!), along with most of the rest of the audience. This was definitely the wildest moment of the night. He played for just a short time and was led off stage again. The last three hapless amateurs had to follow that up!
The highlight for me was the Statue of Liberty. As well as the admirable anti-slavery and pro-immigration history, she is just a beautiful thing to look at. We took the ferry from Manhattan to Liberty Island and toured around with the aid of an audio guide, whose commentary by a tiny margin remained just on the acceptable side of the appropriately proud/US-specialty excessive nationalism divide. I was surprised by how into it I was, and started to say things to people like "Maybe the US will be okay, as long as this is here". As nation-guiding symbols go, it is hard to think of anything that tops her. We saw her again from a boat on a night cruise we took that looped around the southern half of the island. At night with her torch lit she was even more arresting. The US can be an easy target for derision, but It is much harder to poke fun at while looking at the Statue of Liberty.
And the Americans? Many fall over themselves to help you. Tipping troubled me, except when genuinely good service was provided, when it was a pleasure. Mostly we received excellent service, although perhaps tipping breeds a tendency for waiters to invent tasks for themselves (I ordered poached chicken in a restaurant and the waiter said "That is poached in buttermilk so it's going to have a very silky texture". Long pause. Was this supposed to discourage me from ordering it or encourage me or neither? "Okay", I said, successfully terminating the exchange. It was indeed very silky). Perhaps it is a symptom of another oft-observed tendency, that of providing much more information than is necessary. Overheard in a wine shop: "...and I used to drink a lot of Australian wine but the prices went up so high and sometimes I like South African whites and I think I would like to spend about $50 because it's a special occasion but I don't want to spend $50 just for the sake of it I mean I want it to be a nice bottle that is well worth the $50 because I don't usually spend that much and as I think I said it's for a special occasion and so I want it to impress so do you have anything around that price range or at least a bottle that you think meets up to the expectations that someone might have when drinking a bottle that cost $50 for a special occasion...". This reproduction may not be perfectly accurate because during the eavesdropping I developed a sharp pain in my temple and required medical attention.
We left for London tired and a little overwhelmed but knowing that we hadn't really scratched the surface. Vague ideas of the city and the USA had been drawn together, but this new solidity of knowledge really only heightened my awareness of what I didn't and couldn't know, the enigmatic nature of a country with such a rich history of immigration and a reputation for being inward-looking, a country where Sarah Palin and Lady Liberty can co-exist. I left behind the new world for the old continuing my tiresome game of simultaneously chastising myself for my ignorance and patting myself on the back for being so worldly.
PS It wasn't really Stevie Wonder. After he went off doubts formed. The keyboard was already set up there wasn't it? And his trademark head movements and claps seemed a little exaggerated to me. And when he stopped playing he clumsily reached for the microphone and missed by a mile, despite singing into it perfectly accurately for the previous two minutes. As the crowd calmed down Talent brought him back on and revealed that it was not Stevie Wonder at all but the same bouncy guy that kicks the poor performers off the stage. Some of the audience were genuinely pissed off; others nonchalantly affected a pose suggesting they were never fooled; your correspondent tried for something in between and looked ridiculous. The show went on without bloodshed, although it was a near thing. The minute and a half or so that we thought it was him were worth it!
I'll try again. The main thing about New York is, we know it all already. We know Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Lower East Side, the Upper West Side (although I was yet to put together the fact that this referred to the western side of upper Manhattan) etc. Everywhere we went was something somehow familiar. Walking around provided constant reminders of how this city is represented in and influences popular culture. This is where the terms "uptown" and "downtown" are literal (in a 2D way). Is there anyone who doesn't know the words to a song about New York?
Our accommodation was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, although a local we met at the Sao Paulo airport said "more like Bedford-Stuyvesant" (a much less desirable suburb) when we showed him on a map where it was. Williamsburg is touted as a very cool neighborhood with an increasing population of youthful "hipsters", and as has occurred previously on our trip this stereotype proved to be fairly accurate, as long as a hipsters looks like this:
Male: pale complexion, probably a few tatts, a haircut that no money can have been exchanged for, a t-shirt with some clever pop-culture reference, shabby jeans or cut off shorts that could be torn a bit or, much better, paint splattered (paint splattered is really in).
Female: tight jeans or short denim shorts worn over black tights, street shoes (Converse preferred, never new looking), numerous unusual piercings, thick glasses, and a short, angular haircut.
The hipsters seemed perfectly friendly, but one night when lost we were approached by a fashionable trench coat-wearing magazine employee (pointing at her business card "You know this magazine? It's pretty big in New York. I used to work at Vogue") named Rebecca Babcock Bradley, and when she said "hipster" it was with sharp disdain and fingers up for inverted commas. Let's assume this attitude was fashion-related.
We travelled into Manhatan every day for the endless sights. We took pictures of wind-buffeted pigeons on the Empire State Building. We looked up admiringly at the lights and signs of Times Square, surprised that we liked it so much when we should have been disgusted by it for various anti-consumerist and pro-environmental reasons (I will be keeping my detailed analysis of these internal conflicts to myself). We shopped endlessly (my view) but not enough (Mel's). We went to a Yankees game at their new stadium, marvelling at the impossible multitude of statistics (e.g. if desired, one can easily access a batter's figures solely against left-handed pitchers when runners are in scoring positions after the sixth inning) but scoffing at the price of beer and the lame automated chant prompts and scoreboard animations designed to artificially fire up the crowd. We stared at Van Gogh's "Starry Night" at the Museum of Modern Art (ignoring the loud statements of the obvious coming from the crowd circled around it) and established that the Metropolitan Museum of Art owns a lot of boring Picassos but has a lot of other stuff to recommend it. We saw the Lion King on Broadway and Avenue Q (featuring explicit sex scenes with puppets) off Broadway. We were about four blocks and a clumsy bomb-builder away from getting a terribly close look at a terrorist attack, and afterwards found that New York (hysterical media aside) just takes this kind of thing in it's stride. It didn't effect our time there at all.
One night we headed down to the East Village to the Village Vanguard to take in some jazz. This club is so famous that Jamie Cullum name drops it in the British Airways in-flight magazine, but it was fairly easy for us to get our names on the door to see the Heath brothers, famous as back ups to the big names. Jimmy Heath at one point said "this song was made famous by Miles Davis, and when I used to play with him we used to play it a lot. But then Miles left us". Just prior to the show we had spotted the actor James Spader entering, our first celebrity spotting! Again, I was surprised by my excitement at this because I'm pretty sure he's not on the A-list (although I'm not willing to speculate on his exact list position). We were so distracted by Mr Spader that when Jimmy Heath pointed out Tony Bennett about two metres away from us it was quite a shock. I'm no expert but the the music was wonderful and we returned to the street with a delicious New York buzz through us.
Late in our stay we attended the world famous (self-acclaimed) Apollo Theatre in Harlem, where Wednesday night is amateur night. The audience is encouraged to cheer the performers if they are good and to heartily boo them if they are not. Overwhelming boos bring on a lively fellow dressed as a policeman who will chase the contestant offstage. Only one performer suffered this fate the night we were there, a woman who bravely attempted a performance of spoken word. She seemed alright to we spoken word non-initiates. The most common style of performance was a young woman belting out some soulful ballad in the style of Beyonce or Whitney Houston. This got tiresome and as a result the winner was a beautiful girl who played a cello and sang an unusual bluesy number while third place went to a lad with significant attitude who could seemingly dislocate his own shoulders in the service of dance. Second was the best of the crooners.
The was definitely a lot of amateur talent on display and the host (the modestly named Talent) made a big deal of pumping up the number of legends that have been made on the Apollo stage. Michael Jackson and his brothers first came to prominence at the Apollo amateur night apparently. The best moment of the night played off this history. Talent was interrupted from introducing the next amateur by a message from the side of the stage. He looked right; his eyes went wide. He wrote something on a piece of paper and gave it to the band leader, whose eyes went wide. Talent said "Folks, a brother is in the house and he's going to come on now, a genuine Apollo legend, with too many credits to mention here, you gonna get your money's worth, please give it up for Mr Stevie WONDER!!!!!!!". And then, holy shit, Stevie Wonder was led on to the stage to a keyboard where he sat down and played "Signed, Sealed, Delivered". We could not believe it but wanted so much to believe it that we went quite bananas (Tony Bennett who?!), along with most of the rest of the audience. This was definitely the wildest moment of the night. He played for just a short time and was led off stage again. The last three hapless amateurs had to follow that up!
The highlight for me was the Statue of Liberty. As well as the admirable anti-slavery and pro-immigration history, she is just a beautiful thing to look at. We took the ferry from Manhattan to Liberty Island and toured around with the aid of an audio guide, whose commentary by a tiny margin remained just on the acceptable side of the appropriately proud/US-specialty excessive nationalism divide. I was surprised by how into it I was, and started to say things to people like "Maybe the US will be okay, as long as this is here". As nation-guiding symbols go, it is hard to think of anything that tops her. We saw her again from a boat on a night cruise we took that looped around the southern half of the island. At night with her torch lit she was even more arresting. The US can be an easy target for derision, but It is much harder to poke fun at while looking at the Statue of Liberty.
And the Americans? Many fall over themselves to help you. Tipping troubled me, except when genuinely good service was provided, when it was a pleasure. Mostly we received excellent service, although perhaps tipping breeds a tendency for waiters to invent tasks for themselves (I ordered poached chicken in a restaurant and the waiter said "That is poached in buttermilk so it's going to have a very silky texture". Long pause. Was this supposed to discourage me from ordering it or encourage me or neither? "Okay", I said, successfully terminating the exchange. It was indeed very silky). Perhaps it is a symptom of another oft-observed tendency, that of providing much more information than is necessary. Overheard in a wine shop: "...and I used to drink a lot of Australian wine but the prices went up so high and sometimes I like South African whites and I think I would like to spend about $50 because it's a special occasion but I don't want to spend $50 just for the sake of it I mean I want it to be a nice bottle that is well worth the $50 because I don't usually spend that much and as I think I said it's for a special occasion and so I want it to impress so do you have anything around that price range or at least a bottle that you think meets up to the expectations that someone might have when drinking a bottle that cost $50 for a special occasion...". This reproduction may not be perfectly accurate because during the eavesdropping I developed a sharp pain in my temple and required medical attention.
We left for London tired and a little overwhelmed but knowing that we hadn't really scratched the surface. Vague ideas of the city and the USA had been drawn together, but this new solidity of knowledge really only heightened my awareness of what I didn't and couldn't know, the enigmatic nature of a country with such a rich history of immigration and a reputation for being inward-looking, a country where Sarah Palin and Lady Liberty can co-exist. I left behind the new world for the old continuing my tiresome game of simultaneously chastising myself for my ignorance and patting myself on the back for being so worldly.
PS It wasn't really Stevie Wonder. After he went off doubts formed. The keyboard was already set up there wasn't it? And his trademark head movements and claps seemed a little exaggerated to me. And when he stopped playing he clumsily reached for the microphone and missed by a mile, despite singing into it perfectly accurately for the previous two minutes. As the crowd calmed down Talent brought him back on and revealed that it was not Stevie Wonder at all but the same bouncy guy that kicks the poor performers off the stage. Some of the audience were genuinely pissed off; others nonchalantly affected a pose suggesting they were never fooled; your correspondent tried for something in between and looked ridiculous. The show went on without bloodshed, although it was a near thing. The minute and a half or so that we thought it was him were worth it!
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