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The Gates bar in Chelsea.
The move to my new apartment is creeping up on me. I realized that tonight might have been the last time I visit the laundromat I use in Greenpoint and it made me weirdly sentimental. I know that no matter how long I live in New York, I’ll always remember vividly my first place in the city. I’ll miss seeing the colored lights of the Empire State Building when I unlock the front door at night and the silhouette of the Orthodox church. I’ll miss the sound of skateboarders outside the window and the view of the abandoned McCarren Pool that makes me feel like I’m in Eastern Europe. But I’m already looking forward to the roof with a view of Manhattan and a bedroom with a door.
This week I worked on some freelance writing, including two stories for a Greenpoint/Williamsburg newspaper on a butcher shop and a pet spa. As a vegetarian with no pets, I don’t know if I was the most qualified to cover those things, but then again I write about contemporary art almost every week and I’m in no way a contemporary artist. The butcher shop interview was a little awkward, and I tried to hide my repulsion as a 92-year-old man described to me how he used to cut apart a whole cow with a bowie knife. Anyway, I also attended a couple of parties. One was on Tuesday at The Gates, a lounge in Chelsea created from the salvaged interior of the Biltmore Room that was originally in the old Biltmore Hotel. The space was gorgeous and sumptuous, although the lighting wasn’t working with my camera, but you can see a much better picture here. Apparently the marble walls are worth $2.5 million dollars and the place itself was barely marked and guarded with some gates and even a gatekeeper. I felt like I was getting into an exclusive club, even though once inside I couldn’t afford a drink. The party was in honor of the release of the book Going Rouge. As you might guess from the title, this is a counter to the new Sarah Palin book and it examines “the nightmarish prospect of her continuing to dominate the nation’s political scene.” The party was attended by two Sarah Palin look-a-likes, one of whom read some of Palin’s “poetry.” After the party, we headed to the much, much less glamorous Dallas BBQ, where we could afford giant sugary margaritas that could only be served in a restaurant referencing Texas.
Radio City Music Hall with its Christmas tree.
On Wednesday, I woke up to a call from the temp agency with a one-day position. Eager to earn a bit of money, I took it and scrambled into all the Ann Taylor clothes I own and jumped on the subway. It turned out this was a rather famous film studio where I was temping, and one I will not name, just in case I ever want to write a screenplay or work in Hollywood someday. It also turns out that I was working the reception desk right outside the office of the very important founder of the film studio. The instructions for the job were basic: answer the phone, transfer calls (which I did with varying degrees of success), and greet people who came in. Except, I was not supposed to greet the founder, just smile. And in case my trainer wasn’t clear, that instruction was typed and printed on a manual in front of me. I was worried, because although he’s a “very famous film studio founder” I had absolutely no clue what he looked like. But we he stepped off the elevator with two minions I instantly knew, and his eyes only glanced at me once with uninterested sneering before he retreated into his office. All day people ran in and out of his office in a frenzy, and scripts for movies that are being released right now kept coming and going from my desk. There seemed to be about 30 interns, one of whom told me with absolutely no irony that he was interning there until he “makes it big.” Most everyone who came into the office returned my receptionist greetings with a sigh and I answered a few depressing calls, one from a mother who was desperately trying to get someone to look at her daughter’s art portfolio. On the bright side, I’m starting to think a book about my first year in New York might be interesting if I keep getting temp jobs like this.
Ice skating rink at Rockefeller Plaza.
After a day experiencing the stress of life at a very important film studio, I met up with a couple of friends at Rockefeller Plaza for another book release party at Anthropologie, where there was free champagne and hors d’oeuvres. This one was for the release of a book from Elle Decor. I also enjoyed watching the ice skaters in the Rockefeller rink, some showing off and spinning in circles and others attempting to walk on their skates, causing them to tumble backwards like planks of wood onto the ice. The big Christmas tree hasn’t been unveiled yet and was still covered in scaffolding, but the crystal Swarovski star that’s going to top it was displayed nearby. I’m sure the tree lighting ceremony is insane, but I’ll definitely stop by once it is in its full splendor.
I made the mistake of discovering that there are quite a few “Best of the 2000’s” music lists being blogged, and I’m busy catching up on music I missed while I start to organize my things for packing. I’m also looking forward to going to San Antonio next week for Thanksgiving. Being in New York, it’s almost like the rest of the world doesn’t exist in a weird way, and I’m ready to drink some more Texas margaritas and see my family. I feel like end 2009 is going to be a blur as New York gets taken over by Holiday craziness. While the developing New Yorker in me will complain, the Oklahoma girl is excited to see the pretty lights in the big city.
Ghost bike in the East Village. http://www.ghostbikes.org/new-york-city
I know that a lot has happened since coming back from France, but I’m still shocked to look at the calendar and see that it’s November. Wasn’t I just spending my last night in Paris, walking along the river as lights bounced off the waving water from the boats and the bridges? Wasn’t I just watching lightning strike across the sky over the crumbled Quartz Mountains? Wasn’t I just dragging my suitcase down Lorimer Street through thick summer air and up the stairs to my Brooklyn apartment? I guess time moves quickly when you never stop moving, although I still look forward to a day when I’ll be living somewhere long enough to paint a wall or adopt a cat. Thank god for sturdy suitcases and laptops.
Spider webs woven onto a fence in the East Village.
This past weekend I got to celebrate my favorite holiday: Halloween! Considering last year I was in France, where people celebrate Halloween by going to the most “American” place in town (McDonalds), and the year before I got my wisdom teeth out, it wasn’t hard to top recent Halloweens. Apparently Dracula and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen are not widely read, because no one knew who I was dressed as when I said Mina Harker. I wore basically all of my black, vaguely Victorian clothing with a red scarf, so at least some people got close with guessing steampunk. Oh well. It came together kind of last minute anyway because I was distracted by all of my job interviews last week.
A statue with a broken arm replaced by flowers at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village.
Friday night I went to a Halloween party at a friend of a friend’s apartment. I kind of like going to a party where I know only a couple of people, because I can drift around meeting everyone. I also approve of any party that has $50 scotch, as unemployment limits me to the $3 giant Styrofoam cups of cheap domestics at the Greenpoint Tavern.
Halloween sand art. Notice the ring of spiders, bones, skulls, and interior spider web. Oh, and Captain America wandering in the background.
Saturday was Halloween day, and we started by going to the Day of the Dead market at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery to see the sugar skulls. We also walked through Washington Square, where the above sand artist was making a Halloween-themed design with spiders, bones, and bats. We then went to the “Halloween Candy, Wine, and Spirits” tasting at Bottlerocket and found that candy corn goes especially well with white wine, chocolates with red, caramel with bourbon, and red hots with tequila. All for free!
Catacombs-influenced window display at Marc Jacobs.
We then walked around the window displays on Bleecker street, where fake spider webs must have been bought by the ton and children were trick-or-treating. I was especially impressed by Marc Jacobs and their Catacombs-style window display. I can only imagine the time it took to stack all those bones. And anyone who has read my novel knows I have a bit of a Catacombs obsession…
Catacombs in the windows of Marc Jacobs.
Sorry for the blurriness in the above picture, my camera is getting old. Well, it’s been old for a while, so in camera years I think it’s almost a centenarian. It still works, though, and has probably seen more of the world than most of its cousins.
Zombie crawling in a Marc Jacobs window display.
Marc Jacobs also had this awesome zombie crawling in a swamp window display. Its eyes lit up and its head twisted around as it writhed on the ground. This is a store after my heart.
Pink rat window display.
That evening we went to the McNally Jackson Halloween Embarrassment, which had literary nerd fun like scary story readings, a spooky voice contest, and paper crafts. There was also a costume contest that was won by Sylvia Plath and her oven, although Humbert Humbert and Lolita along with Jesus and the Chrysler Building (Jesus Chrysler) were close behind. Other costume highlights that I saw included Magical Realism, Foreshadowing, Nora Charles, Saul Bellow, and Lyra from the Golden Compass, And here, I just found a flickr set from the event if you want to see the nerdiness in action. In our group, I was still Mina Harker, Elizabeth was the 1960s, Arya was himself, Sean was Tintin, and his friend Crish was Hamid Karzai.
Vincent Price had versions of this skeleton chair in his house.
Unfortunately, it rained almost all night, so we didn’t make it to the parade in time. However, just walking around the streets was like being in a parade. The streets were teeming with zombies and Lady Gagas. Even better was taking the subway back to Williamsburg and EVERYONE was in costume. I wish everyday in New York was like that. I guess it kind of is.
Some colorful stair dancing at the Carnaval de Romans.
Last weekend was a full of feting, including house parties on both Friday and Saturday night, one of which went until 5 am and one which was a housewarming in the middle of the Ardèche countryside. But the most ostentatious celebration was the Carnaval in Romans-sur-Isère, a town just northeast of Valence in the Drôme department. Romans is well-known for its shoes and even has a museum dedicated to shoes, but I am saving that for another trip because Saturday was all about homemade costumes and fire.
These costumes at the Carnaval de Romans looked like they came from a futuristic 'Alice in Wonderland.'
It seemed like just about everyone I know in Valence had made it to Carnaval. It turns out I didn’t bring any costumes in my suitcase from the States though, so I failed at disguising. I did try for a “Watchmen” theme at the Friday night Carnaval-inspired party with a clock shirt and my owl-shaped camera case, but no one there was as nerdy for me. I did see “Watchmen” last night because it came out in France before the States. I totally thought it was going to be sold out because it was opening night, but there were only about 20 people in the theater. I will save my comments on the movie itself until it’s out in the states.
An awkwardly dressed street band at the Carnaval de Romans.
When we first got to Romans, we spent some time wandering around and seeing street bands and dance groups and even young circus performers. We also checked out the old part of town, which is surprisingly charming.
A group of revolutionaries is photographed by a pirate at the Carnaval de Romans.
You might wonder what Carnaval is all about. It is the French version of Carnival, which is celebrated every year before Lent in most Catholic countries. It’s basically Mardi Gras, which started from the French and Spanish influence in New Orleans. People dress in costumes and have a giant parade as a last big party before the somberness and sacrifices of Lent leading up to Easter. The Carnaval de Romans is the biggest in the Valence area and has a parade each year where at the end a giant “Carmentran” made out of what appears to be papier mâché is burned. More on that later. This Romans celebration has been around for hundreds of years, and had an unfortunate bloody event in 1580 where between 20 and 30 people were killed as a result of tensions between the rich and the poor. The 2009 Carnaval de Romans was violence-free from what I witnessed and I didn’t even see much drinking. I did however see many fabulously homemade costumes.
A classy street orchestra at the Carnaval de Romans.
I remember when I was at the University of Oklahoma and the fraternities and sororities would spend ridiculous hours on their homecoming floats until they looked perfect enough for the Macy’s Day Parade. I loved how at the Carnaval de Romans everything was so unpretentious. Many people’s costumes consisted of blank CDs and plastic bottle caps and their floats were on wagons or even shopping carts. I don’t think I saw one car in the parade.
The Carmentran is lead through the streets in the parade at the Carnaval de Romans.
There was no theme to the Carnaval and the parade was wonderfully eccentric, with Spartans on bouncy stilts, ABBA-inspired pig-faced people, fake strikers, and other ambiguous hordes of costumed people. The centerpiece of the parade was the Carmentran, seen above. A new one is built every year and its destruction is supposed to represent the elimination of all of last year’s problems. I think it’s a lion/human hybrid, and as you can see he has been attacked with silly string. Silly string and confetti were being sold on the streets and children were allowed to run loose attacking strangers. A charming child threw confetti in my face.
Spartans on springy stilts in the parade.
We watched the parade from a rather steep part of the road, so it was exciting to see if people would maintain control of their wagon floats. They all made it down safely. There were a lot of people on stilts of varying heights and some, like those worn by the above Spartans, that seemed like pogo stick cousins.
Six-headed dragon in the parade.
My favorite part of the parade was this six-headed dragon monster that spit water on the crowd. But later he would shoot fireworks out of his many-mouths. For what purpose? Oh, you will see.
Young skeletons on stilts in the parade.
After the parade was over, we got one euro Nutella crepes before walking to where the Carmentran would meet its end.
The Carmentran is set on fire.
My pictures are not going to do justice to what happened next. First, there was an over-the-top performance with acrobatics and dancing and singing, all leading up to the point when the Carmentran was dragged onto a bed of sand and the six-headed dragon entered the grounds. The dragon then shot fireworks out of its mouths and set the Carmentran on fire. Which would have been ridiculous enough, but the Carmentran’s head was also full of fireworks that exploded everywhere. You can kind of see one of the dragon heads in the left part of this picture.
The Carmentran is engulfed in flames.
In what must have been minutes, the Carmentran was completely covered in flames and ashes were flying everywhere. I can’t imagine a small community event in the States ending so spectacularly. Thank you France!
