Habit, I suppose. For 20 years I worked out of that space and it’s not hard to flounce back into it.
I was at the piano a good bit this weekend, earning what I interpreted to be a deliberate over-the-shoulder look from someone who moved into the building recently. She would never have heard me play and might be intrigued, or offended, I can never predict which extreme will prevail. I did not sound especially good but why would I, having virtually given up the instrument for a year… But I think I sounded determined, and capable, playing Godowsky’s Something Volcano (can’t think of the first word of the title) and the Volodos arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s slow movement of the second ‘cello sonata. I have mixed feelings about the piece. The seemingly endless buildups are not rewarding and the climaxes are thorny and unnatural. Such is the risk of arrangements.
My next day off, Wednesday, looks like another rain day.
I was thinking about clutter. Mental clutter, in particular. My path to the subway each day is filled with messiness and distractions I don’t think most people see. I am forever doomed to remember where the payphones were, their fully-formed visage popping up from the sidewalk spots on which they stood. Depending on my alertness level there could be only three of these or there could be five from my door to the subway. They are gone, of course, but I still see them.
Then there are the 311 requests I made, some of them addressed others ignored. I was for weeks fixated on a crosswalk signal that did not work, and which I reported to 311 thrice. I went out of my way to check on it, finding it finally fixed after the third call. It’s true what they say about 311. Manhattan issues like this get addressed promptly. For Queens you have to be a nag, and even then you’re lucky if it gets looked at at all.
Recent bits of mental furniture that fill my head on what seems like it would be an idyllic, easy trek to work, include a couple of abandoned CitiBikes, one which I reported, the other I only discovered two days ago. I reported the one bike 3 weeks ago after noticing it had been chained to a street sign for months. I received a courteous and seemingly genuine note from Lyft, the company that owns CitiBikes. But the bike remains. The other one I shall report when I’m more certain it has actually been abandoned.
So much to think about. So much to do. There was a large sign for the American Museum of the Moving Image that somehow got flipped upside down. One of the screws broke. With only one screw or bolt holding it up it seemed like it could fall and even cause injury. That 311 request was addressed pretty quickly, within 2 days, I think. Sometimes it works other times not so much. It’s always been that way.
There is a lot to think about, a lot going on. I check my Payphone Radio cards which I stashed on a Q66 bus stop sign. They have survived surprisingly well over the months but today one was missing. I replaced it. They are placed on a bus stop sign outside the studio of a former fried who does not talk to me or listen to my bullshit anymore. I was fine with letting her go as a friend but I sometimes ask myself if she still even thinks about me, or notices the presence of my radio cards in front of her studio. She is one of the many reasons I have to cross the street when walking around Astoria. I cross streets many times to avoid people who let me go as a friend, and never reconsidered. Sooner or later everyone gets sick of my shit.
Normally on days off I’d been making epic journeys, milking the unlimited MetroCard for every last mile of subway and bus journeys. I also had a lot of payphone detail to catch up on but for now I seem to have run out of opportunity to summon the memory of a derelict, abandoned payphone.
Speaking of nothing I noticed that 1010 WINS radio has been identifying itself as 92.3 FM, not 1010 WINS, as they done since the day Iarrived in New York. Hearing their buzzard-like jingle and the words “1010 WINS” in room 1466 of the Parc Lincoln is one of my earliest memories of New York. It was the first New York radio station to come through the clock radio my grandmother got me for Christmas years earlier. It was interesting to hear New York come through what had until then been a strictly Tampa radio. How could its soul have changed so easily?
Word is that AM might finally be going away on account of dashboard technology interfering with the signal. GPS devices and cell phones can cause AM signal to get hairy. I’ve encountered this in my shower, when I put the cell phone on the same shelf as the radio so I can stream porn while waiting for the weather forecast on the 8s. The phone definitely causes interference, which dissipates when I move the phone away. Maybe it’s the porn that causes the interference, and there would be none if I watched church services or G-rated cartoons.
