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Steps from each other on my epic walk from Queensboro to Ditmars today.

Looks like an unremarkable salad eaten in a heated outdoor patio on a Thursday night in February, yes? Well, note the small glass of wine to the left. One of the most transformative drinks I’ve had in recent memory. It was handed to me from a neighboring table by a woman whom I’d just heard described as “one of the greatest mezzo voices of our time.”

She had gotten up excitedly from her table to hug a friend passing by, and as she sat back down she apologized to me for the disturbance, which there was no need for! I told her I was in my own little world, which I was. I had been watching a group of early-20-somethings emerge from the SAG-AFTRA building next door and experienced a deep swell of nostalgia rise, churn, and fall within me, almost to the point of tears.

So, moments later, to be handed this small cup of wine from the mezzo soprano, whom I now saw had large, kind, open eyes and wisps of silver bordering her hairline like a halo, felt like a benediction. “Cheers to you,” I said. And the holy wine tasted like a reminder that I am alive here, right now, sitting literally at the hypotenuse of this familiar slice of city between past and present selves.

And I thanked her and the whole table once more before they left, promising myself that I would pay the kindness forward the soonest chance possible.

I accept the strange gifts of my life. I try to stay awake to it all.

“TELLUS [the Audio Cassette Magazine] is a program of Harvestworks, created in 1983 at the Rum Runner Bar on Canal Street in New York City.”

“Joseph Nechvatal, a visual artist, Claudia Gould, a curator and Carol Parkinson, a composer and staff member of Harvestworks/Studio PASS met to discuss the idea of a magazine on cassette which would feature interesting and challenging sound works.”

“With the advent of the Walkman and the Boom Box, the editors perceived a need for an alternative to radio programming and the commercially available recordings on the market at that time.” — Harvestworks website

Complete archive here.

(via NYT)

The way I understand it: In the junkspace culture, curmudgeons are those who have artistic integrity and maintain strong boundaries around their personal sensibility.

“As I type this in the room at my home in which I keep my media library, at my feet are two bags lying rather indelicately on the floor. One, a knapsack, is filled with, let’s say, 60 CDs, the top third or so of which I just played on my most recent show. Lying next to it, also inviting itself to be stepped on, is a messenger bag with approximately 40 LPs; the ones in the front of the bag are the ones I’ve already spun. (I also store a few 45s in a front pocket of that CD-holding rucksack.)”

“In any given show, anywhere from 95% to 100% of the music I feature comes from my personal collection. That familiarity allows me, like a minority of WFMU DJs, not to bother planning a show at all. I know there’s one in my two magic satchels.”

via WFMU Blog circa 2011: Gaylord Fields Tells How He Prepares (or, Rather, Doesn’t) for His Show

Detachment: One of six basic psychological needs as meta-analyzed by Ed Diener and his colleagues.

(via Psyche)

Boston: City of spiritual refreshment, at least it is for me.

Hannah and I haven’t lived together since 2013, but every (non-lockdown) year, one of us has made the Amtrak pilgrimage to see the other for a weekend involving food, wine, window shopping, a performance of some sort, an arty excursion, long discussions that remake the world, and at least one transcendent, unplanned experience that transmutes the weekend from a visit to a homecoming.

This time around, it came from visiting a shop on 6 Birch Street, which is depicted in the uppermost sections above. I won’t be able to recount my experience with the purveyor, Joanne, in any great detail that will do the encounter justice. All I can say is that it is such a rare thing to be in a shop that is infused with such caring energy and even rarer to feel personally blessed by its owner. After we had a brief exchange about jam, loss, friendship, the pace of life and its many crossroads, she told me she was honored to have a New Yorker come visit her shop. How validating and nice that felt to be seen that way.

Other highlights I have to record here before they float away:

- A warm welcome meal at Ten Tables

- Meditating at 7:30 am both mornings in the perfect quiet stillness

- Meandering around Papercuts, the platonic ideal of a bookstore if there ever were one (I do regret not buying the sweatshirt I was contemplating)

- Finding TWO ‘90s-era iMac desktops this weekend: one grey, one blue, both smaller than I remember.

- A very good chat (and smuggled-in apple cake) at Ula Café

- Provocative first readings with my newly acquired Pulp Tarot deck

- An incredible pre-show meal (and deeper than deep conversation) at Frenchie

- Mass confusion and ridiculousness in line for the Dita show

- Having our minds melted by the exquisite sensuality and strength AT the Dita show

- Our Sunday morning jam-on-toast flight, stroll through the Arnold arboretum, stop at the farmer’s market, and serendipitous visit to see Joanne one last time

…and so much more that can’t be put into words.

Οι ντομάτες και τα λεμόνια και τα πορτοκάλια και οι πιπεριές και τα αγγούρια και τα πεπόνια

“As I said, when I’m outside or at home, I’m hearing what hits my eardrums, I can see what I’m seeing. What do they call that? Primary source material, that’s what the world is for me. I’m not going through a secondary source, which is the phone.”

— The Last Man Without a Cell Phone via CAFÉ ANNE

le-corbustier