Emvergeoning

Emvergeoning’s NYC correspondent fvc sent the following account of a day on which mushrooms threaded together Max Neuhaus’ Times Square sound installation and the Boredoms’ recent “77 Boadrum” concert in a park under the Brooklyn Bridge. As luck would have it, I happened to get ahold of a recording of this very concert through another friend. Follow the link at the bottom of the post to download the MP3. Photos provided by generous Flickr users.

Several weeks ago some friends were sitting around at my apartment on a hot lazy sunday afternoon. They wanted some weed so they called a guy who sent his runner over with a briefcase of pot, hash, mushrooms, pills and powders, each in at least 2 or 3 varieties. The dealer even had a neat “menu” with descriptions of everything for sale. Drugs are a very professional service industry in Manhattan, if you have the right numbers.

Everyone bought some weed and then the dealer gave a 20 sided die to J — who called the number three and then tossed the die — a three. So he won a bag of mushrooms. After the sun set and we had gone to go look for a place to eat dinner, the mushrooms where left behind. They sat around my apartment for almost a month.

I’d been feeling all out of joint and found myself going to bed early, weary, and then waking up tired and gray. So one saturday morning, having surrendered friday night to bed at 9pm, I woke up at 4am and knew what was to be done. I took a shower, cleaned the apartment a bit and cooked some black sticky rice. I walked over to the bodega as the sun was just rising and bought some fresh juices: pineapple orange and guava. Mixed them up to make a hawaiian favorite, “POG” juice.

Back home, I ate my sticky rice, drank the juice, lit incese and candles and took the mushrooms washed down with some lapsang tea. And then I sat and I waited. By now it was almost 6am. Nothing seemed to be happening. Then suddenly I felt tired. I’d woken up so early. I laid down again on my futon and relaxed.

When I closed my eyes, I saw a black laqured turtle swimming through a black laquired pond. A fat gold goldfish with long fins trailed behind. All around I could see tiny currents of water traveling in glimmering, jeweled streams. I woke up and opened my eyes and rose and wandered around the apartment for a while, pacing. I’d put out some interesting books and records, but I realized there was nothing here for me so I left.

By habit I bike everywhere but it seemed wise to walk. There is no substitute for walking through manhattan. A walk up broadway from downtown, early on a saturday morning, is a revelation. The traffic is almost nonexistent, but already the city was coming to life. I followed broadway all the way up to times square.

I was amazed, I did not feel stoned or high or trippy at all but at the same time I felt really good. I was seeing details that had gone out of focus, hearing wonderful sounds I’d mistakenly learned to tune out.

At times square I began to look for the sound installation you’d told me about. I’d forgotten what it was called. [Ed note: the piece being referred to is Max Neuhaus' Times Square sound installation]. But I recalled your instructions, walking down the pedestrian median between the two busy avenues. I was about to give up on the idea. Then I walked over some grating and heard a peculiar sound. Oh no, I thought, Ben heard the subway and thought it was Art. But then the sound changed peculiarly just as I took another step.

Photo of Times Square by Flickr user andy in nyc

It was exactly as you described. The sound varied enormously as you wander over the grating. I stood at the far northern end, looking down the X of broadway and 7th ave. I could feel the City alive with a sort of blood pulse energy, the vast structure humming and breathing deeply, as if in a deep slumber. So maybe I was high after all.

I wandered around there for quite a long while, maybe 20 minutes or so. Standing still anywhere in manhattan is a rare treat. Instinct keeps you in a constant motion, but for the price of a moment’s pause, one is given a seat in a ridiculous theatre of the absurd.

I watched tourists, hurrying around with lonely planet in hand, looking for the exact location of times square, nervous that they were not quite “there” yet. I watched a young puerto rican couple argue with enormous weariness as their toddler stood just apart, eyes wide, sharing my naive wavelength. I heard a heavy crunch as a taxi backended a private car. The drivers opened their doors slowly and began yelling, as if practicing an ancient ritual.

Finally I moved on, and walked up through columbus circle and into central park. By now I was feeling quite stoned and content. Wandering the paths through fields, over streams, around rocks, up and down hills, past fountains and lakes. This central park presents a thousand wonders and asks almost nothing in return.

After a couple hours of this wandering I came to cleopatra’s needle. Apparently the thing dates from around 1400 BC, was first uprooted by the roman army around 60BC and then later made a gift to new york city by the khedive of egypt in 1879 AD in congratulation for the recent completion of the suez canal.

A dozen or so park benches and a large clearing surround this genuine antiquity, yet the area has a distinct feel of neglect. This monument to a monument is already a ruin. Strange to see something dissolve while planted just at the edge of that material conservatory, new york’s metropolitan musuem.

Photo of Cleopatra’s Needle by Flickr user Amen-Ra

I entered the met around noon. Here I visited a couple favorite pieces. Some japanese folding screens, a roman fresco, an entire reconstructed room of medieval wooden inlay. Soon I left the met, crossed the park and went to zabar’s. There bought some olives and cinnamon rolls. Olives and cinnamon rolls? I dont know what I was thinking. I returned to central park and sat on a bench watching joggers and cyclists strain past in their exercise.

From the park I took the subway out to brooklyn. There I sat on the grass with some friends in a park underneath the brooklyn bridge, just on the banks of the east river. The band was setting up. Those on the guest list were entitled to free cans of sapporo beer, courtesy of vice magazine. I discovered I was in fact on the guest list, under the assumed name of “Johnny Milano.”

At 7pm on 7 July (07), year 2007, I saw, and heard, your friend alan licht and 76 other drummers perform with yamatsuka eye in a super-augmented line up of the boredoms. The event was clearly of the “once-in-a-lifetime” variety. In the large but friendly crowd there was a palatable excitement, the sort of magical electricity that flashes when people know they are about to experience something really great.

Photo of drum spiral taken from Brooklyn Bridge by Flickr user iandavid

The sound defies description. The set began thunderous and then moved to surprisingly quiet sections, with cymbals cascading around the drum spiral in waves. Eye stood on a raised stage at the center of the spiral of 77 drummers, conducting with a set of colored batons. The batons were also used to play his “guitar” a sort of tower of seven fret boards. During the insane crescendos he’d brandish an enormous silver trident and smash electrical sounds through the amplifiers.

Yet the music was not deafening. The music was loud but distinct, away from the distortion of close barriers, the hard ceiling, wall and floor of the nightclub. Sitting outside, in the grass, by the water, the sound was free in the open. And freedom in the open is a dissipation.

In the east river, circle line boats steamed past, tourists gawking the freaks on shore. Once or twice an nypd speed boat came close to shore and then shot away. Meanwhile massive barges glided past, their industrial fright impassive.

The sun was setting, new york city glimmering golden.

Download MP3 bootleg of “77 Boadrum” [sorry kids, link removed on 4.4.08]

Photo taken at 77 Boadrum by Flickr user TomVu

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