Andrew's Halloween Adventure
Okay. I had a couple hours sleep, then I went out in search of Halloween.
I'm always trying to find the quintessential experience when these unique holidays rear their intrusive heads (interrupting the normal rhythms of my trying desperately to make normal things happen). In theory I like holidays but in reality they always seem to come at the worst time, when I can really use another day of solitude and focus. (And when can't I?).
Days of celebration and revelry seem to require as much energy, luck and talent as a career and a wealth of experience of being excluded, neglected and dismissed (okay, maybe not so much dismissed) have created a need to celebrate fully that can be crippling. Last night, it was almost too much to bear and part of me wanted to extend my nap into the night and through 'til morning.
As I was going to tell you yesterday, I'd already had one disappointing Halloween this year, showing up at a weekend bash feeling like a million bucks and leaving feeling only a thin coating of the (metaphoric) "goo of insecurity" and a need to analyze what went wrong.
I had looked so good and felt so good. Why did I convey such wrongth?
The truth is, I didn't do anything so terrible. People who already liked me still liked me. I was simply conveying desperation to strangers; to new friends and lovers who will never be. I so wanted there to be magic encounters and moments that I tried too hard and that smells as bad as my shoes. (Another story for another time.)
And speaking of shoes, they were too loose, creating a physical underpinning of insecurity that fueled my emotional insecurity. And I don't think the itchiness of my athlete's foot acting up did anything to increase my sense of personal strength either.
And my belt was too tight.
But then again, I went to another party in the middle of the first party and I only knew one person there and I was a hit (more or less) and I danced (perhaps loosened up by the ambient pot in the air) and conversed and thrived and I was wearing the same stuff and I was the same me.
But was I?
I believe to a certain extent, I had already analyzed the flaws of my earlier "performance" and corrected them for what was, in effect, the "second show". Emboldened by this, I returned to finish the night at the first party and, once again, left covered in neurotic goo.
Go figure.
Before getting in the subway, I went to an Asian-run (in the UK sense) shop to get a bottle of (substandard American) Coke and had a nice conversation with one of the workers about gentrification and the wanton destruction of attractive older architecture. Then I saw a sizable, boxy black guy taking a copy of The Onion from a free newspaper box on Flatbush Ave.
"Turn to Page 3," I told the stranger. (It was a quarter to 4 in the morning but only because we'd gone back an hour and I was talking to strangers.)
He complied and I showed him my name in the ad for The Onion's show on Thursday night. He was mightily impressed. I had found my audience.
Anyway, returning to last night (Halloween proper), I couldn't bear the thought of desperately heading for the Village Halloween Parade to mix with the thousands of others who also desperately needed to touch the essence of the day. Instead, I headed to the northern tip of Manhattan, some 9 miles from midtown, to a neighborhood I'm not sure I've ever visited despite being born and raised in New York. (I mocked a 30-something native Londoner for never before having been to Crouch End a couple weeks ago. I am a hypocrite.)
It's called Inwood and I've long wanted to go there. (I've been through/by the area but not really in.) They were having a spooky Halloween in a neighborhood park (I'd read about it on a website listing free things to do in NY) and I thought going there would be a good way to touch Halloween and experience Inwood at the same time.
So, I got off the 1 Train and found myself in a desolate expanse of warehouses and frightening (in a non-Halloweeny sense) isolation. And I immediately started walking into the heard of the desolation, which was -- it turned out -- the wrong way.
There was great potential for a terribly (in the worst sense) spooky Halloween.
But a friendly UPS guy set me in the right direction and it turned out that not much more than 3 paces from the desolation was a beautiful neighborhood of elegant buildings and nice people, some of whom were sitting outside with candy for all who passed. Up the street from them, a guy had turned his daughters into ghouls and his garage into a foggy devil's lair, (He gave me a candy eyeball and talked to me about Ray Harryhausen.)
A few blocks away was the park I was seeking. The park contains a forest that is the only part of Manhattan that is as it was before the white man came and in this forest was arrayed a wonderful range of human and mechanical sights and sounds to give you the (happy) willies and make you feel as if you'd truly celebrated Halloween.
This was what I'd needed.
Someplace new. Someplace nice. Someplace "spooky".
I felt good
Okay, I admit it -- after that I headed for the Village and more conventional NY Halloweeniness.
But I didn't feel quite as desperate as usual.
I'm always trying to find the quintessential experience when these unique holidays rear their intrusive heads (interrupting the normal rhythms of my trying desperately to make normal things happen). In theory I like holidays but in reality they always seem to come at the worst time, when I can really use another day of solitude and focus. (And when can't I?).
Days of celebration and revelry seem to require as much energy, luck and talent as a career and a wealth of experience of being excluded, neglected and dismissed (okay, maybe not so much dismissed) have created a need to celebrate fully that can be crippling. Last night, it was almost too much to bear and part of me wanted to extend my nap into the night and through 'til morning.
As I was going to tell you yesterday, I'd already had one disappointing Halloween this year, showing up at a weekend bash feeling like a million bucks and leaving feeling only a thin coating of the (metaphoric) "goo of insecurity" and a need to analyze what went wrong.
I had looked so good and felt so good. Why did I convey such wrongth?
The truth is, I didn't do anything so terrible. People who already liked me still liked me. I was simply conveying desperation to strangers; to new friends and lovers who will never be. I so wanted there to be magic encounters and moments that I tried too hard and that smells as bad as my shoes. (Another story for another time.)
And speaking of shoes, they were too loose, creating a physical underpinning of insecurity that fueled my emotional insecurity. And I don't think the itchiness of my athlete's foot acting up did anything to increase my sense of personal strength either.
And my belt was too tight.
But then again, I went to another party in the middle of the first party and I only knew one person there and I was a hit (more or less) and I danced (perhaps loosened up by the ambient pot in the air) and conversed and thrived and I was wearing the same stuff and I was the same me.
But was I?
I believe to a certain extent, I had already analyzed the flaws of my earlier "performance" and corrected them for what was, in effect, the "second show". Emboldened by this, I returned to finish the night at the first party and, once again, left covered in neurotic goo.
Go figure.
Before getting in the subway, I went to an Asian-run (in the UK sense) shop to get a bottle of (substandard American) Coke and had a nice conversation with one of the workers about gentrification and the wanton destruction of attractive older architecture. Then I saw a sizable, boxy black guy taking a copy of The Onion from a free newspaper box on Flatbush Ave.
"Turn to Page 3," I told the stranger. (It was a quarter to 4 in the morning but only because we'd gone back an hour and I was talking to strangers.)
He complied and I showed him my name in the ad for The Onion's show on Thursday night. He was mightily impressed. I had found my audience.
Anyway, returning to last night (Halloween proper), I couldn't bear the thought of desperately heading for the Village Halloween Parade to mix with the thousands of others who also desperately needed to touch the essence of the day. Instead, I headed to the northern tip of Manhattan, some 9 miles from midtown, to a neighborhood I'm not sure I've ever visited despite being born and raised in New York. (I mocked a 30-something native Londoner for never before having been to Crouch End a couple weeks ago. I am a hypocrite.)
It's called Inwood and I've long wanted to go there. (I've been through/by the area but not really in.) They were having a spooky Halloween in a neighborhood park (I'd read about it on a website listing free things to do in NY) and I thought going there would be a good way to touch Halloween and experience Inwood at the same time.
So, I got off the 1 Train and found myself in a desolate expanse of warehouses and frightening (in a non-Halloweeny sense) isolation. And I immediately started walking into the heard of the desolation, which was -- it turned out -- the wrong way.
There was great potential for a terribly (in the worst sense) spooky Halloween.
But a friendly UPS guy set me in the right direction and it turned out that not much more than 3 paces from the desolation was a beautiful neighborhood of elegant buildings and nice people, some of whom were sitting outside with candy for all who passed. Up the street from them, a guy had turned his daughters into ghouls and his garage into a foggy devil's lair, (He gave me a candy eyeball and talked to me about Ray Harryhausen.)
A few blocks away was the park I was seeking. The park contains a forest that is the only part of Manhattan that is as it was before the white man came and in this forest was arrayed a wonderful range of human and mechanical sights and sounds to give you the (happy) willies and make you feel as if you'd truly celebrated Halloween.
This was what I'd needed.
Someplace new. Someplace nice. Someplace "spooky".
I felt good
Okay, I admit it -- after that I headed for the Village and more conventional NY Halloweeniness.
But I didn't feel quite as desperate as usual.
posted by Andrew J. Lederer at 9:14 AM
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