valentine's day and president's day.
what does that suggest - the power of love? i think huey lewis once waxed unpoetic about that very combination. but does being in love give you power or make you completely powerless? i'd argue both. which is why, i suppose, such an ambiguous phrase exists. at any rate, twas a weekend full of loving the place i am in, and in loving it, letting it take me wherever it wanted.
and that's the powwwwer of looove.
it started on friday, when i was coerced into going to a james bond tribute night. now, my interest in james bond could be described as minimal at best - but i allowed myself to be talked into this rather strange evening, after the orange glow of a great jones cafe pint and a terrifically bad, but mildly intoxicating bottle of chianti at dinner. so suddenly i found myself watching singers tear through all the famous bond theme songs. and it was delightful. i forget sometimes, that talent oozes out of every pore of this town - so even the no-names deliver name-brand performances.
saturday i agreed to go for tacos and bowling in sunset park. fitting valentines day activities, right? i mean, love is messier than cramming your gullet at a taco stand and can be as disappointing / exhilarating as rolling gutters and strikes. alright, so i just force fit all that - but it kind of works. and so we ate tacos and rolled more gutters than strikes at a divey old bowling alley called 'melody lanes'. the place was a fascinating cross section - hipsters, latinas, hasidic jews, you name it - they were all there, celebrating v-day to a soundtrack of gangsta rap and classic rock.
but the best part about bowling there had nothing to do with bowling. it was our bartender at the melody lanes bar - peter, an old italian guy in a bow tie and cummerbund, who offered up profanity-laced philosophical musings along with our 9 dollar pitcher of bud. this guy was at once kind of insane and kind of awesomely brilliant. which was an inarticulate way of saying we'll be going back to visit him, for sure.
after bowling, we wandered down into park slope, and did some bar hopping. the standout, commonwealth, had a jukebox full of eclectic loveliness, all handwritten mixes waiting to be discovered. there was something really odd about choosing from someone else's music - it felt like musical voyeurism - exciting yet a bit dirty. we weren't even there long enough to hear my careful selections, but the act of choosing was enough of a thrill.
and then it was off to williamsburg to go to a hipster party called 'eff valentines' - a bit predictable, really, but we were in the mood for silliness. there were hearts everywhere - heart balloons on the ceilings, cut-out hearts hanging on the wall, candy hearts in bowls. it occurred to me that this wasn't 'effing' valentines at all, but embracing it whole-heartedly.
sunday i went to see my friend's band vetiver perform stuff from their new record in the lovely little coach house behind frankie's in carrol gardens. my friend and i laughed that we stuck out like sore thumbs. or is that well-groomed thumbs. all the girls were in various shades of messy, fuzzy and flannel. which is not to say that they were unattractive - just the antithesis of our straight hair and bangs. i think i was the only girl there wearing a dress. we spent quite a bit of time outside by the open wood fire, which was delightful, but after we smelled like we'd been rolling around in a campfire. back in my neighborhood, we stopped in for a nightcap, and the guy sitting next to us at the bar could smell the campfire. of course, we weren't embarrassed, because he was the one sitting at the bar, alone, drinking a bud light on a sunday night.
we asked him what brought him to the bar, and suddenly found ourselves in a conversation with the most ordinary guy in the world. i didn't know that such a guy existed, but oh, he does. his name is mike, and he works as a trader at some big financial place. mike seemed kind of down on himself. he told us that 'he had no interests whatsoever, and that he was a boring guy'. i had never heard anyone admit to this, and i found it mind-blowingly sad. finding interests seems like such an easy thing to do. or at least pretend to do! this guy was openly aware of his failure to be interesting, and had no problem broadcasting it to anyone who was interested enough to listen. at least for a few minutes. i told him, jokingly, that the first thing he could do to change his damning status of 'uninteresting' was to pick a more interesting beer than bud light. he laughed, a little, but you could tell he'd keep on ordering bud light forever.
so all of this in a weekend. a weekend of meandering and musing and amusing encounters and thought-provoking conversations. can i bring it all back and neatly tie it in to the power of love? most likely, not. i let the city kind of wash over me this weekend, which is something akin to love. and i'm sure i felt its power. but mostly just a determination to write it all down, however poorly, so i have a record of all this funny.
to look back on and fall in love all over again.
what does that suggest - the power of love? i think huey lewis once waxed unpoetic about that very combination. but does being in love give you power or make you completely powerless? i'd argue both. which is why, i suppose, such an ambiguous phrase exists. at any rate, twas a weekend full of loving the place i am in, and in loving it, letting it take me wherever it wanted.
and that's the powwwwer of looove.
it started on friday, when i was coerced into going to a james bond tribute night. now, my interest in james bond could be described as minimal at best - but i allowed myself to be talked into this rather strange evening, after the orange glow of a great jones cafe pint and a terrifically bad, but mildly intoxicating bottle of chianti at dinner. so suddenly i found myself watching singers tear through all the famous bond theme songs. and it was delightful. i forget sometimes, that talent oozes out of every pore of this town - so even the no-names deliver name-brand performances.
saturday i agreed to go for tacos and bowling in sunset park. fitting valentines day activities, right? i mean, love is messier than cramming your gullet at a taco stand and can be as disappointing / exhilarating as rolling gutters and strikes. alright, so i just force fit all that - but it kind of works. and so we ate tacos and rolled more gutters than strikes at a divey old bowling alley called 'melody lanes'. the place was a fascinating cross section - hipsters, latinas, hasidic jews, you name it - they were all there, celebrating v-day to a soundtrack of gangsta rap and classic rock.
but the best part about bowling there had nothing to do with bowling. it was our bartender at the melody lanes bar - peter, an old italian guy in a bow tie and cummerbund, who offered up profanity-laced philosophical musings along with our 9 dollar pitcher of bud. this guy was at once kind of insane and kind of awesomely brilliant. which was an inarticulate way of saying we'll be going back to visit him, for sure.
after bowling, we wandered down into park slope, and did some bar hopping. the standout, commonwealth, had a jukebox full of eclectic loveliness, all handwritten mixes waiting to be discovered. there was something really odd about choosing from someone else's music - it felt like musical voyeurism - exciting yet a bit dirty. we weren't even there long enough to hear my careful selections, but the act of choosing was enough of a thrill.
and then it was off to williamsburg to go to a hipster party called 'eff valentines' - a bit predictable, really, but we were in the mood for silliness. there were hearts everywhere - heart balloons on the ceilings, cut-out hearts hanging on the wall, candy hearts in bowls. it occurred to me that this wasn't 'effing' valentines at all, but embracing it whole-heartedly.
sunday i went to see my friend's band vetiver perform stuff from their new record in the lovely little coach house behind frankie's in carrol gardens. my friend and i laughed that we stuck out like sore thumbs. or is that well-groomed thumbs. all the girls were in various shades of messy, fuzzy and flannel. which is not to say that they were unattractive - just the antithesis of our straight hair and bangs. i think i was the only girl there wearing a dress. we spent quite a bit of time outside by the open wood fire, which was delightful, but after we smelled like we'd been rolling around in a campfire. back in my neighborhood, we stopped in for a nightcap, and the guy sitting next to us at the bar could smell the campfire. of course, we weren't embarrassed, because he was the one sitting at the bar, alone, drinking a bud light on a sunday night.
we asked him what brought him to the bar, and suddenly found ourselves in a conversation with the most ordinary guy in the world. i didn't know that such a guy existed, but oh, he does. his name is mike, and he works as a trader at some big financial place. mike seemed kind of down on himself. he told us that 'he had no interests whatsoever, and that he was a boring guy'. i had never heard anyone admit to this, and i found it mind-blowingly sad. finding interests seems like such an easy thing to do. or at least pretend to do! this guy was openly aware of his failure to be interesting, and had no problem broadcasting it to anyone who was interested enough to listen. at least for a few minutes. i told him, jokingly, that the first thing he could do to change his damning status of 'uninteresting' was to pick a more interesting beer than bud light. he laughed, a little, but you could tell he'd keep on ordering bud light forever.
so all of this in a weekend. a weekend of meandering and musing and amusing encounters and thought-provoking conversations. can i bring it all back and neatly tie it in to the power of love? most likely, not. i let the city kind of wash over me this weekend, which is something akin to love. and i'm sure i felt its power. but mostly just a determination to write it all down, however poorly, so i have a record of all this funny.
to look back on and fall in love all over again.
posted by mad at 8:54 AM
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