Crown Feathers: A Dialogue of Desire in the Urban Marketplace

From antiquity to the present, cultural theory has often fused critical and creative discourse, esoteric and exhibitionistic tendencies. Socrates and Diogenes first announced many of their most radical propositions from the Athenian marketplace. Thoreau sowed his solitary beans while remaining (as scholar Stanley Cavell suggests) just barely within his neighbors’ view. And now, as archivists of evanescent urban experience, as grazers of the public space (commercial, aural, textual), we have improvised 45-minute conversations for 30 straight days throughout New York City.

Half of these talks took place at a Union Square health-food store. After a liberal sampling from the bakery cases and deli counters, we would stake out a table in the crowded dining-area, inconspicuously assemble a low-tech recording device and resume our cumulative dialogue concerning fellow consumers (their ingenious salad-bar combinations), the urban scene (as displayed through glamorous floor-to-ceiling glass) and the aesthetic, ecological and interpersonal issues affecting our lives (terriers in turtlenecks, global warming, germs we sensed circulating on each other’s breath). Other locations included MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera House, Central Park, Prospect Park and a Tribeca parking garage.

For this PopMatters feature we have prepared a promiscuous, omnivorous talk. Perched atop the grocery store’s panopticon-like mezzanine, our gaze gets continually directed outwards (and inwards), not only over shelves and shoppers, but also the broader “consuming cultures” in which we find ourselves. Verstehen finds its late-capitalist venue, as we the consumers get consumed by reflections on the allure of passing patrons, of fashion trends, of social customs and taboos. This conversational flow oscillates between the sacred and the profane, the timeless and the timely — providing a model for pop theory developed not from the library or seminar room, but amid a mecca of 21st-century consumption.

7:27 p.m. Monday, 22 January

A: That guy’s leather neck thing turns me on. His earrings dangle like Buddha ears.

J: Yeah you’ve described how turned on you got by those skirt-boot combinations we’d…

A: Still just…

J: Perhaps everything turns you on right now. What about this bald man reading The Wall Street Journal?

A: I’ve noted him. Today I feel no distance between my face and others. I’ll give and receive glances all around a room. But the boot-skirt combo embarrasses me. It’s like getting psyched at auto shows.

J: Those girls work at a deep level of attraction. You have this roughness of leather boots, the smoothness of skin concealed by thin tights, and then the coarse fabric of woolen skirts.

A: Just as this Asian girl’s knees hanging like a broken woodwind instrument get me. [Pause] That girl in blue flats, talking to the customer we call my boyfriend. You say he’s hit the women hard this week?

J: Yes.

A: Always in the sweater which suggests a neck-brace?

J: He’s sat on that bench during his free time all week. He targets girls waiting for Jamba Juice. He plants himself then starts talking with the girl on his right, and when she rises to grab her smoothie and vanish, he’ll turn and find a woman to his left.

A: What you’ve called “the bench” looks uncomfortable. Space opens behind it, straining his back. Whether or not most girls care, this guy’s got stamina. But you also mentioned appealing on a basic level. Do you develop strategies for…

J: Hmm I wouldn’t think I had any, yet today I washed my snow-hat and scarf using generic woolite…

A: In a sink?

J: Yes Sharon’s bathroom sink. I pulled a bottle from the cabinet, and while my clothes washed in a machine up the block, I mixed two capfuls in her sink to wash my scarf and hat. Lots of black, lots and lots of blackness from… rather, clean water turned black. I’d hoped to dry the hat at the laundromat, but after 30 full minutes it still felt damp. So I’ve worn a face-mask.

A: The one you pretend to mug me in after long separations?

J: That’s right, except I don’t pull it down as I walk the streets. I bunch it around my forehead.

A: Like Ghengis Khan?

J: Exactly. Or prominent crown feathers. And more girls than ever look my…

A: Though…

J: Especially on the L-train.

A: did you consider drying clothes in a microwave? This can work.

J: Sharon owns neither TV nor microwave. She’s furnished her place the way I’d furnish a place, except she collects books. Each time my eyes move around that apartment they land on the word “modernism”.

A: Books stuck on shelves? Or…

J: She has, I’m not joking, six bookshelves in a tiny…

A: Today I helped Kristin assemble her first. I’ve also hand-washed clothes and and made black water. Once I didn’t wash my Diadora shorts for six months, so dark water leaked out.

J: Do you sense it’s blue dye from the shorts? Or could it…

A: I’d say…

J: be actual filth?

A: loose dye would’ve washed out with the previous owner. Just now I appreciate (or got turned on by) cute black little trousers — for women coming from the gym, though they’re not sweaty. I kind of wish we all dressed this way, and more important felt that…

J: Sure I imagine girls rinsing these pants in bathroom sinks all through the city.

A: Last night I dreamt of a woman our size who would catch me and throw me into the air. She seemed a friend (not my girlfriend), but she’d get this mischievous look then toss me. I kept giggling.

J: When when we bussed tables on Martha’s Vineyard, to relieve a busy shift’s tedium we’d step into the alley, where I’d cradle you and throw you a bit. We called that Bouncing the Baby.

A: Do you think I had a gay dream?

J: Not necessarily. That smiling woman reminds me of an L-train passenger as I rode to Union Square — clearly the partner of a Polish man studying English vocabulary. We couldn’t…

A: This Polish man sat there or you surmised from her appearance? The guy…

J: Yes. His girlfriend didn’t need to study or already had studied for the day.

A: And it seems counterproductive to study on the L, though I did, um, read Foucault’s book on prisons…

I Only Want to Kiss You

I Only Want to Kiss You

J: Discipline and Punish.

A: Yeah, yet just remember that boats of insane people traveled port to port, never granted docking privileges.

J: But this man wasn’t reading Foucault. I looked at the notebook and then his facial expression as he tried mouthing the words “loaf”, “loaves”, “certainly”, “so”, “gratitude”, “somehow”. He then turned the page and practiced sentences: “I only want to kiss you”; “The world is mine”; “That got stuck”; “Come right away.”

A: As I’ve listened I’ve watched a mom chew rectangular slices of four-cheese pizza.

J: For short words he wrote the Polish equivalent.

A: You mention gleaning what you could from this man’s face, and I wonder about that in checkout lines. I’ll wish I could watch myself from upstairs. Tonight I’d tracked you far below — hoping for a view on the the deed. I feel on stage when stealing things, as if part of some big entertaining show.

J: Well unfortunately I’ve abstained from dinner (penance for delaying you last night). Yet I’m happy staying lucid in spite of hunger. So how much did the sandwich cost? I looked from behind. I I I’d stopped…

A: An Italian meatball — go ahead.

J: half up the stairs and searched for you, seeking a bright red scarf. What did you eat?

A: Um to begin with: when I got to Tribeca last night this orange scarf lay on Kristin’s bed. She’d passed it in her lobby. I still can’t find my hat and gloves…

J: Ooh.

A: But your… the sandwich cost ninety cents. I made a mess in the grocery cart with with personal possessions. I’ve carried a computer today, sections from the Sunday Times, a coat and my stuffed backpack. Between crevices of this material I’d wedged a garlic bagel and currant scone. That drastically reduced the sandwich cost, since I don’t eat whole meatballs.

J: The standard servings look much too large.

A: I would agree with that. An American serving…

J: Right.

A: we don’t need.

J: Unless you wanted a food coma.

A: Which I’d had my first nineteen years I think — occasionally cut by toffee candy.

J: Hmm I don’t know how your boyfriend on the bench can start so many conversations.

A: Well this girl, if you’ve noticed, has turned her neck one-quarter counter-clockwise. The last woman frowned while exposing teeth. I guess that’s baring your teeth.

J: She’d appealed…

A: Sure.

J: to all passing guys for help.

A: She glanced our way many times. She’s… do you feel on stage while stealing things?

J: Thankfully I don’t. I’d become self-conscious and spoil the project.

A: I’ve liked this self-consciousness. It’s a bright, sweaty self-consciousness that I associate with fame or winning an award. Tonight a sign said More Seating Upstairs, but I read More Stealing Upstairs, and pictured us heading…

J: Yeah, you almost…

A: toward greater triumphs.

J: coaxed me to take a bean burrito from the cooler, though…

A: I’d thought I saw one in your pocket.

J: the shell contained sunflower and canola oil.

A: Kristin calls those healthy oils, and recommends oil variety. I’ve forgotten which oils she labeled bad. Corn of course…

J: Soybean oil.

A: Bad? But canola’s light and versatile. It cooks well at high temperatures.

J: Did the Greeks use canola oil?

A: Doesn’t Pythagoras sound paranoid in his abhorrence of the bean? Beans contain protein and carbohydrates.

J: Right Pythagoras thinks too — perhaps he focused too much on mathematics.

A: Or didn’t listen closely to the, um, spheres.

J: Though he worshipped the sun. One teaching of his gets translated as: “Never urinate in the sun’s direction.” Do you know this…

A: No.

J: good advice?

A: Don’t pee straight up?

J: Well if the sun seems divine, we ought not…

A: Out of respect you’re saying.

J: Yeah. But many nights in Santa Fe, walking dusty hills, I’d lock eyes with the the moon and drain it.

A: I felt that relief today paying off a $28 library fine. I asked the clerk if I’d broken some record, but he heard Will I get a record of this? Then he handed me a new card.

J: What color now?

A: Navy.

J: Yes, my card you lost was maroon.

A: The new cards come with a spare barcode slit.

J: They assume you’ll carry a keychain?

A: Correct.

J: Do you carry…

A: [Cough] never showed off large keychains (yeah I understand those looks you’re making: the shapeliness of butts in jeans entrances me, and and the moony fleshiness out of jeans serves as pleasant contrast). That hairy man who just walked by dangled a keychain from his neck.

J: He resembled a roadie for a band. Though most guys dress like roadies these days.

A: At least those from rich families.

J: So when did you lose my library card?

A: I last used it, um, early winter.

J: Ok. You’ve possessed no cards between then and…

A: Yet need — getting the card was essential. Now I can stay home.

J: Did you check out music?

A: Dinu Lapatti recording Debussy’s preludes and Richter playing Chopin. If you want specific titles…

J: And you’ll listen in the darkness of your room?

A: I’ve planned to listen tonight in darkness. I’ll return to Brooklyn for the first time since…

J: Yeah Lee, your middle-aged roommate, must miss you on these extended trips.

A: Lee called.

J: To make sure everything went ok?

A: [Muffled] told him about my grandma, and he left a message that mail had come. [Pause] Hmm do you think my boyfriend might make a move on this new sweet innocent…

J: He just took a seat.

A: person eating cold pasta?

J: He had a look of extreme despair checking his voicemail a moment ago.

A: Would he know from his voicemail-lady’s initial inflection whether or not there’s a message? I remember, when I still cared…

J: Right.

A: that voice could sound scornful.

J: Yeah as if to say “Get a life. Quit checking your voicemail so frequently. Don’t peer into this void. Step outside and take a walk…

A: “If you miss a call, the screen lights up.”

J: or go ride subways.”

A: People complain about subway construction, but I admire anything renovated late-nights and weekends.

J: The C-line soon enters its third year of construction.

A: I’ll respect such perseverance from the MTA, and I’ve sensed a similar tenacity in the man we call my boyfriend.

J: Though how did we start calling him your boyfriend?

A: Once I stared and couldn’t let go.

J: Have you felt some immortal longings?

A: Immortal did you say?

J: Yeah.

I Saw Her Lips Quiver Like a Bow

I Saw Her Lips Quiver Like a Bow

A: Tonight I’m attracted to both genders. Don’t, do you often pass a gay man in a rainbow-striped vest?

J: Yes I’ve noticed that. It’s especially popular on the L-train.

A: Or do you think this girl’s a cellist?

J: Which?

A: You know the one.

J: Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised. Every bit of her exudes sophistication and grace.

A: I saw her lips quiver like a bow. [Silence] But now I’m wondering, Jonny, what happens next month? You’d expressed doubts on the phone last night. We spent our early twenties, you and I, catering, bussing and waiting tables — feeling, as you’ll say, on permanent vacation. Yet does that seem possible for…

J: It’s tough; I doubt I could go through… I don’t think I can undertake the, um, tasks involved with catering.

A: Most…

J: I couldn’t, I can’t imagine responding to a manager’s complaint about my shoes (how they resemble tennis shoes more than dress shoes) or concern about a belt buckle’s shininess. One silver buckle on a canvas belt always sparked controversy at catering companies.

A: Silver rather than gold or brass?

J: They’d call it flashy, but I considered it the least flashy of buckles. Nor could I imagine wheeling big tables across banquet rooms and maybe getting splinters.

A: I loved wheeling tables: not knowing which direction would come next.

J: Right.

A: I’ve just, I got drawn in by a couple’s glances. My chest lunged toward the napkin dispenser.

J: Wow.

A: I feel I’m on…

J: Should you go…

A: those spinning tables.

J: see Kristin tonight? Somebody needs…

A: This this is our…

J: to calm you down.

A: first night apart all week. Still you’d… we’ve discussed how hard it is to live in most of the country now — since television replaced not only vistas but, um, local sensibilit…

J: Yes Stephen Shore faced this, and…

A: Sure.

J: felt the strong urge to document those vanishing sensibilities.

A: Now I’ll wonder if humanity likewise gets blanded out, flattened out, so catering managers encounter predictable turf, rather than the variegated fields that we…

J: De Tocqueville makes a prediction that matches your hypothesis.

A: What does he say? The same…

J: Exactly.

A: In terms of land and human personality?

J: Yeah, how in a a democratic state people with eccentricities, people who develop what René Char calls their “legitimate strangeness”, don’t fit in or get properly employed.

A: You brought up De Tocqueville at a Rosh Hashanah party years ago, near Boston’s Porter Square. Can you…

J: No I don’t remember. Maybe I drank wine.

A: Later we punted apples at the host’s apartment, since no single girls came…

J: Oh I do remember. I’ve been reading this book on birds, learning that a hummingbird heart beats twelve-hundred times per minute…

A: Right with one-hundred-sixty-degree blood.

J: The hummingbird’s wings beat eighty times a second. Yet I’d also read about birds that use aeiri… that use complex aerial displays to attract mates; or they’ll flap up prominent crown feathers.

A: So the hat you’d designed…

J: Is just an experiment. Though girls seem turned on by the feathers, especially intelligent girls that look like birds.

A: You’ll find many bird-looking women in New York — the eccentrics, right? But can you picture the passport photo where I resembled a lion…

J: Yes.

A: when I was eighteen? [Cough] day of that photo the, um, Kinko’s clerk made it clear she felt intense desire for me, I think because of the lion’s mane.

J: We should examine…

A: I hope you hear me OK. Last night I burned my tongue tip on a microwave burrito.

J: I can hear you fine. Do you see how this guy carries his bag? That’s a bit of urban improv. He wove his umbrella through the handles and now uses an umbrella as…

A: You’ve never done that? I also put umbrellas (preferably a short umbrella) between my back and backpack, as brace. Or books wedged…

J: Kittens especially like that space.