Pomp/ Circumstance

Although I became a bit self-conscious when I realized recently that most of my writing had been falling into the "NYC is wacky!" wheelhouse, no one can deny that New York consistently rewards even the most casual people-watchers with insane visual stimuli.  In Washington, I know simply based on geography whom I will encounter.  Without fail, I will see middle-aged women wearing natural fibers and MOMA jewelry in Cleveland Park, and I will compete for a table at Commissary with one million gay men in Logan Circle.  In Gallery Place, every person will want to see the same movie as me, and I will always meet people carrying NPR tote bags who will grumpily remind me that drinking soda is verboten on the Metro.  But the streets of New York present a thoroughly mixed bag, people-wise, which is beyond entertaining.  Indeed, N and I have taken to playing a fun guessing game called "Professional Dog Walker, or Just Crazy?" whenever we come across someone walking more than four dogs.  Because you never know.

Except sometimes, the assumption that everyone in my path is a big weirdo backfires on me in a slightly embarrassing way.  This happened this morning, when I saw a bunch of people in violet robes and immediately started trying to determine which fringe religion they had embraced.  I was hoping they were Moonies, although I certainly wouldn't be able to pick a Moonie out of a line-up, unless he were getting married en masse in a football stadium somewhere.  But then I snapped out of my reverie and realized that these people were certainly not Moonies.  They weren't even run-of-the-mill Buddhists.  They were your basic college kids, excitedly chattering and snapping pictures of each other on the morning of their NYU graduation ceremony.  

Come Monday

I think that there should be more Guinness chocolate cake in my life. With icing that doesn't quite fluff, which means that it gets served directly out of the mini food processor and spooned right onto the cake. Besides that, though, what I really want is for lots of my friends to live in the same place again. It's an unpopular opinion, but I really loved law school, and much of that love stemmed from getting to hang out with some incredible people every day of the week. I really miss going downstairs to the cafeteria during class breaks to buy a snack and visit with whatever friend was inevitably pseudo-studying and watching The Price Is Right at one of the cafeteria tables. I also miss Keg on the Quad--- even after it was re-named Wacky Wednesday, or Wet Your Whistle Wednesday, or whatever it was called in order to appease the apparently vocal non-drinking contingent. Although some might really debate this, I even miss elaborately setting up shop in one of the libraries with study partners to settle in for a few weeks of finals prep. One time I settled in a little too well--- I decided to shelve my textbooks in with the library books to avoid carrying them back and forth from my locker, which was truly almost a disaster when the librarians staged a mass re-shelving the day before one of my finals.

I thought about posting yesterday, but I couldn't because first I was busy, and then I was melancholy. The busy part was obviously the more fun part of the day. N and I ate delicious sandwiches and then went on a long walk, first in Hudson River Park and then east into the Village. But then Sundays always turn sad when we're visiting each other, because he has to leave, or I have to leave, and then I'm alone in my apartment finishing up the movie we had started together or reading the book that I had been too keyed-up to read on the train during the trip down to Washington. Even when my life is a bit more settled and normal, Sundays are bittersweet. The idea of winding down one week and gearing up for another is always a little tiring and sometimes daunting. However, my internal melodrama really took over yesterday evening as I was missing N, missing my lovely friends whom I don't see as much as I would like, missing my ridiculously idealized memories of law school, and missing my family (particularly my mom on Mother's Day); I couldn't work up the energy to do much of anything except wander around CVS, read some Independence Day, and then fall asleep early.

On Showing Off

On Saturday evening, we met three adorable children in a playground who showed us all kinds of jungle gym-related tricks.  The oldest kid started a group chant--- "back it up, back, back it UP"--- and the two younger ones demonstrated some fairly complicated break-dancing moves.  We joined the chant and went wild with applause.  In case you're wondering where the kids' parents were when these hijinx were occurring, they were sitting at a bench nearby, not paying much attention, indeed, paying no attention because they were making out with each other pretty intensely.  We all tried out the kids' Razor scooter, and Jenny and I turned some cartwheels before we moved on and left the kids to their jungle gym.

I continued the experimental gymnastics later in the night and, sadly, had not much success.  I fell pretty hard and skinned my knee while trying to do a handstand in Tim's kitchen.  I couldn't really get the momentum I needed, so I think perhaps my efforts would have turned out better had the kitchen been just a tad bigger.  I felt a little vindicated when the next person to try a handstand not only fell, but in falling accidentally pulled the toaster cord, causing the toaster to fall onto him from the top of the refrigerator.  There's really nothing like another's (nearly literal) crashing and burning to make my own failures of coordination a bit more palatable!   

Let Us Now Praise Amanda Palmer

You can tell from the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and the dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest of girls.  

So begins the frenetic "Girl Anachronism," one of the stand-out songs on the Dresden Dolls' self-titled album, a song that perfectly encapsulates the Bell Jar-siren, high school drama club queen, broken-doll persona that lead singer and pianist Amanda Palmer wears so excellently.  Palmer largely maintains this role in the songwriting and general aesthetics that comprise her debut solo album, "Who Killed Amanda Palmer?"  The cover art features her lying face-up on a wooden floor, wearing a tatty crimson Victorian frock with a prettily turned-up hem.  Although she lies horizontally, the album cover is oriented vertically so that Palmer appears to be floating upward, a goth Mary Poppins.  WKAP?'s songs range lyrically from the same mental health hysteria of "Girl Anachronism" ("Runs in the Family"), to a lush ballad about retaining one's sense of self while in a relationship ("Ampersand"), to a rollicking rocker ("Leeds United") that asks, "Who needs love when there's Southern Comfort?"  Oh, and the album also includes your standard, light-hearted abortion sing-along ("Oasis"), which, although firmly tongue-in-cheek, might still be Just a Bit Too Much.       

This post makes it pretty obvious that I adore Amanda Palmer's musical talents.  But what I have really come to admire about her is that, despite her compellingly unstable persona, Palmer has proven that she is the "carefullest of girls."  I do not mean to imply that her art and her stage presence are calculated in that they are in any way inauthentic.  However, Palmer is a master of self-promotion, and she has built a fantastic career largely from sheer ambition and hustle.  Her dramatic tiffs with her record label have been well-publicized, prompting Palmer to strike out on her own and email, text-message, and blog her way into her fans' hearts.  She tours and reaches out to her audiences tirelessly.  Following one of her concerts that I saw last fall at DC's 9:30 Club, Palmer left the stage and held an earnest little meet-and-greet with the concert attendees.  The energy and sweat that Palmer pours into her career make her stand out as an artist who both loves what she does and understands the effort she needs to log in order to keep on doing just that.

Palmer's birthday was a few days ago, and she mentioned in her blog that what she really wanted as a birthday gift was for each of her supporters to introduce her music to a friend.  Of course, never lacking in self-confidence, Palmer phrased this request: "please take this moment in time and think about one person . . . who does not have amanda fucking palmer in her life and might like her there."  So although I am a bit sheepish at the fan-girly direction this post has taken, I'll chalk it up as a present to Amanda.  Happy birthday Ms. Palmer, and may this year contain more of the same keyboard pounding, lyric cleverness, and damn-the-man bravado we have come to love from you.