On Going Out in NYC
What it's like to venture among the people, places, and events in New York City
A few weekends ago, my parents visited me here in NYC. With that comes a bit of a shock in perspective; they’re tourists, sure, but they’re not here to see the art, history, or culture of New York. They’re here to see me. During their visit, I found myself reflecting a lot on what it means to go places in the city.
There are a lot of wheres. Places with music to hear, things to buy, shows to see. Yet no matter how carefully the agenda is planned, going somewhere always has some element of the unexpected. “Easy” walks are thwarted by surprise construction. Quiet places have unanticipated loud disturbances. Even a Broadway show that has been on autopilot for years has a new and unpredictable audience every time.
Stuart Saunders Smith Concert
For me, concerts sometimes have another layer of the unexpected: what even will I hear? What I mean is I love “weird” music. Paradoxically, I love it when I hear something and at first don’t like it. The artist has a point of view and something to say that I’m not understanding yet. My instinct is to give the artist the benefit of the doubt and try to decode it. (Side note: this principle doesn’t apply when I don’t like music because the lyrical content is bigoted. I don’t much care to decode that point of view.)
Some of the “weirder” music I’ve grown to love over the years:
I was briefly a metalhead in high school, and one of my favorite artists then was the drone metal band SUNN O))), whose music lacks a beat.
My freshman year of college, I bought a CD of variations on an ancient traditional Chinese melody that sounded out of tune and I hated at first but ended up playing on rotation for years.
During my senior year of college, I took frequent advantage of the free recitals and discounted student rates for on-campus concerts. One composer who especially transfixed me was Stuart Saunders Smith.
Smith was, and still is, a master of his craft: music that is angular, complex, and, at least in my opinion, filled with striking postmodern beauty. If you are new to contemporary classical, however, there is no denying the inaccessibility—or dare I say weirdness—of his work. Here’s a 2019 performance of nine songs for actor-percussionist:
Last year, I was looking at the calendar for the Brooklyn experimental venue Roulette and saw that some of Smith’s works were being performed. My friend A. was on the verge of moving out of NYC and had told me she wanted to see something “weird” before she left. So I texted her: you asked for weird? I told her about the concert and invited her to join me.
Everyone else in the audience seemed part of an inner circle, including the musicians themselves who watched from the seats when they weren’t performing. I couldn’t help but feel a little out of place, though I also found joy in the hipster esoterica of it all.
The first half of the evening was exactly what I had been waiting for. Stuart Saunders Smith was there in the flesh (seen in a red sweater above), and a series of his duets was performed, all featuring percussion. If you’re curious, the complete concert was in fact recorded and is available on YouTube. As of this writing it has 126 views.
Yet it was the second half of the evening—which featured works by Irish composer Karen Power—that proved more memorable for me. The first number by her had a pianist playing along to a recording, at one point standing up and wrapping and stroking a wire against the strings, in effect “flossing the piano,” as A. put it.
Up until that point, I was enjoying the composer’s soundscape. But once the flossing went full back molar, I looked at A., who was wincing as though rusty nails were being scraped along a chalkboard, and no matter my openness to unusual music, I sympathized viscerally. For both of us, that piece was hard to listen to. At least we were in it together.
Staten Island Estate Sale
My favorite kinds of sales events are ones where I don’t have to spend much money. I occasionally check EstateSales.net to see if there’s anything that piques my interest. If you’ve never been, an estate sale typically refers to a house or apartment where you enter and absolutely everything inside is for sale.
It’s rare that they’re posted far enough in advance to make my monthly Blankman List, but when they are, I like to include them. One day I spotted an estate sale in Staten Island, with images prominently showing a collection of comic and horror movie posters. I sent photos to my friend E. and asked her if she was interested in checking out the sale.
Neither E. nor I live in Staten Island, and there was no denying that without a car it would be a hike. But, determined, we met at a lower Manhattan bus stop in the pouring rain the morning of the sale. My app showed a bus was supposed to arrive in 10 minutes. We stepped into a nearby deli to watch for the bus and have a snack. The 10 minutes passed; no bus. I saw another one was due in around 20 minutes. We now both double-checked across multiple apps, all showing a bus arriving in around 20 minutes. So we waited patiently in the rain, determined that there was no way we would miss this bus.
Twenty minutes passed. Still no bus. In one of the apps, we literally watched the phantom bus “go by.” Supposedly there’s another bus in 15 minutes, but . . . well, at this point do we still really want to go to this estate sale in Staten Island? Is there a bus actually running? We improvised a new plan: walk to SoHo and check out a free exhibit at the Drawing Center.
E. and I started walking uptown. Along the way both of us reminisced about buildings we passed in which we once worked. We made impromptu stops for coffee and snacks. And we saw Of Mythic Worlds: Works from the Distant Past through the Present, a wide-ranging exhibition of drawings spanning artists, eras, and conceptions of the imaginary and impossible to see. It seemed a fitting conclusion to waiting for a phantom bus.
Hadestown
I return now to my parents visiting my husband and me a few weekends ago. My mom’s health precludes her from attending a Broadway show, so for one evening she babysat our cat Billie while my dad, my husband, and I went to see Hadestown.
This was my husband’s and my third time seeing the show. We love both the story and the music and were excited to see for the first time Lillias White perform as Hermes, a role previously only played by men. We were also excited to see how my dad responded to the show, who had never seen it and was going in blindly. But what we ended up being really excited to see was the couple sitting next to us.
Let us imagine the story of “Hans” and “Charlene”:
Hans’ parents immigrated from Germany decades ago and were among the thousands trying to make a new life in New York City. They not only succeeded, they flourished, leaving Hans a fortune who never needed to work a day in his life. Now in his 40s, Hans spends his days nursing recreational drugs, browsing dating profiles, and trying to win the affection of wayward teenagers looking to get high. “I’ll pick you up in a limo and take you to a Broadway show,” he boasted. Charlene saw a chance to ski slopes on the way to Hadestown and grabbed it.
None of this story is confirmed or verified, but it suspiciously explains why the older guy with the German accent kept asking his younger date if she wanted to leave the theater to “visit the car” in the middle of a Broadway show. (She said no every time, but he went regardless, at one point missing the literal climax of the show in Act 2.)
Witnessing the action gave me comfort by comparison. I felt thankful and loved, having a husband of five years on one side and a father (of far more than five years) on the other. I take neither for granted.
And Hans, should you read this, I do not begrudge you, and I’m sorry if I misjudged the narrative. I wish you and Charlene a long, fruitful relationship full of Broadway shows and cars outside. Also, Hadestown wasn’t a bad pick, but maybe go with Back to the Future next time? The music’s not as good and you already know how it ends—a way better choice for periodic limo pick-me-ups.
There is a lesson in all of these stories. A certain amount of vulnerability is always required when going out with others. You and anyone you’re with must be okay with the outing not going fully according to plan. New York City is unpredictable and crammed with last-minute changes, outlandish characters, and backup options.
In the end, it’s not where you go. It’s who is there with you.