Brooklyn still exists more vividly in the imagination then in reality, since the Notorious BIG passed away after pissing blood. The Midwesterners who now rent his childhood apartment pour out Forties from paper bags, recycled paper bags, better for the environment, in memory of an ethnic past (inspiration for a painted and written future). Reruns of Goodfellas, with dishwashing liquid commercials between the beatings, fuels your brain, marooned on the couch. Bands from the year of the Space Odyssey, the monoliths of music that Arthur C Clarke could only vaguely dream of as he picked the pollen from his nose (as the Sri Lankans traded their saris for semi automatics) were Karen O, Liars, other dancing rockers, band names of punctuation, the "The" revolution in bandnames.. all makes a heart sigh and set sights for Brooklyn.
When is it too late to start again? In your thirties, do you pack up the furniture and heirlooms and rent a u-haul east coast bound? Park Slope is the nicest, the hipsters with baby carraiges.. they never moved back home, they only write about home, and how unsophisticated it is. Brooklyn, the furthest east you're willing to go sans crossing the Atlantic for Barcelona, then Paris, the Berlin. Old street art lines the concrete walls, while new graffiti art goes straight to the gallery walls (just like straight to video? vhs, the 99 cent medium, takes a while to rewind, but might as well savor that silent quality time). Sure the founders of the Liberal Arts borough have left for greener pastures, well not greener, just more Southern, towards the equator. The cheap rents of Baltimore and Philadelphia and Raleigh, where the native Blacks still roam, chasing buffalo, slowly embracing skateboarding. Do they all really listen to hiphop and know about the Four Elements of BBoy culture? Not too sure about that, but you're not too sure about anything, that's why you moved away in the first place (to become last place in the new competition!)
The local college sends about 50 kids, mostly girls in baggy primary-colored tights and snowboarding vests, to live the Brooklyn "experience" over the summer. Now that the reasons for Brooklyn's prominence have fled south, we worship a memory, the first sighting of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the first dance move to a drum machine by an ironically-minded graphic designer, the first photocopied flyer, the bloodstains of a Liars concert, the first digital photos by an asian photography student. Seven years since the Strokes broke out of the millionaire's ghetto, shows in the state universities, and audiences of ugly girls in pretty dresses.. shotgun haircuts, Luxx parties with Larry Tee in helium voice.. the "Frontier" is crown heights and bushwick, where intrepid trappers are still ambushed by the native species. Five credit cards per holdup, keep your receipts. The streets are filled with the same types who gawk at Manhattan skyscrapers, this time amazed across the river by the view of the skyline, the view from the rooftop martini bar.
Are you too old to be moving there? How will your children adapt? Previously prancing from rock to rock in the foothills, wearing superhero costumes for fun, keeping it to a whisper when your dad's favorite NPR show hits the digital airwaves. Plump radio station DJs give you the okay, you'll do great there, since you didn't do so great here. At least New York City will understand you, it has to, it already understands serveral hundred languages right? Your literary thoughts are less than literal, but at least in the tall cities they respect the disrespected, the loners, the bitter graduates (ah, the bitter graduates, busy drinking and nostalgic for their degrees, wait until age 30 when your skin comes loose from your skeleton, then looks and love are sacrificed for force and farce) They'll love you in Park Slope. Not sure how your offspring will do... I don't think the youngsters there care that he was the little darling of the sterile gallery girls. The plastic sword broken in half, the S ripped from his chest, the cub scout badges buried under the beautiful blanket of northeastern autumn foliage. At least the digital photos and videos were backed up several times over for safekeeping, archived on the internet.
The man who moved West from Brooklyn.. well he went East from West originally a while back, so he's from out here really, but he doesn't say that. He says he is from Brooklyn, well its most recently Brooklyn, technically. But technicalities are irrelevant to inspiration, right? He represents Brooklyn. He says you'll love it. There are some great fences and warehouses there. That's enough to rejoice, enough to relocate, to remove.
Ignore the young kid who just moved back home, from a bad month in New York City, broke, his five o clock shadow a nine o clock silhouette, almost an 11 o clock night.. he's back to work, making food, smoking pot, keeping quiet. He is not your future, he wasn't hard enough, mean enough, ambitious enough for the Big Apple. You've got the hate and bitterness to survive there with the other exiles. You're not an asshole, it's just that they can't handle it here. The big city is grey, so remember to bring some pretty colors from the mountains and the meadows (they need it there). Bulletproof baby carraiges, screaming subways, no problem. Read the New York Post with your eyes closed, since all the sentences are in capital letters. In Instant Messenger land, that is akin to shouting!
Meanwhile another family from the famous five boroughs buys a house on the Plains. Finally escaping the metropolis and leaving a room for rent, for you, for your loved ones, to lock yourselves inside, since in NYC, it's all about your room, your refuge, your safety. The stress will be romantic. Middle age crisis less of a crisis than an oppurtunity. Remind your wife to carry her purse inside her jacket, and remind your son to keep his visions of mountains in his eyes. No eye contact with anyone on the train. They will take the mountains from his eyes, for certain. The will reach out from their black jackets and grab the sky from his pupils. They will pick the irises from the garden of his face. Colors are a rare commodity in the concrete architecture, and it costs almost 10 dollars nowadays for a movie, so might as well get the colors for free from your son.
Memorize the flowers before you leave, so in your dreams they will grow taller than any disintegrated towers were. Did you know in the penthouses they wear spacesuits? It's life in the top levels. That's still pretty short compared to the Peak's summit, but mountains are stupid, right? Stupid and pretty, like most girls out here.
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