1.14.04 city dreams

I started to write this report and then ended up in the hospital -- now my notes are a mess and I can only provide an overview instead of the piquant details I had planned:

The New York City Adventures of Bee Lavender and Anne Elizabeth Moore

First day

Standing around Sea-Tac at midnight waiting for our cheap flight we realized that we were surrounded by an unusually large number of indie rockers with disheveled hair and ironic tshirts. Anne persisted in referring to them as our boyfriends but I was more interested in figuring out which gate was our departure point - the airline evidently cuts corners not only on snacks but also on signage.

The flight was noteworthy only insofar as Anne was seated next to someone who insisted on sharing his life story and repeating over and over that he would not be the kind of annoying person who would talk the whole time. We both reverted to defensive napping. The guy tapped Anne awake to tell her that he wouldn't be bothering her and as we arrived in the city he jumped up and went to the back of the plane, where he vomited voluminously and at top volume.

Second day

My central nervous system was crackling from lack of sleep and too much bad coffee by the time we dragged out to Jersey City and then back to Manhattan to pick up our event passes. Along the way we agreed to a division of responsibility: Anne would navigate and I would plan. Or at least we would get credit for those activities, even if we failed miserably in our endeavors.

The registration, day stage, and vendors were all located in a Hilton on the Avenue of the Americas. The hotel vibe did not enhance the event; alternative or independent media is not well served by the ambiance of corporate chains. I've never been willing to use hotels or conference centers for my events even when doing so would be practical or convenient, and CMJ didn't reverse that rationale in my mind. We walked around picking up free stuff from the various record companies and organizations (including lots of gruesome stickers from PETA) but couldn't handle the space and took off to check out the city.

I always pack with fiendish precision and take more stuff than anyone could possibly need - and always find myself stranded without something necessary to deal with the weather. Ayun had advised me to bring my fuzzy hat (she says that it looks like a knitted toilet seat cover) but I couldn't find it. So of course the wind kept picking up my crispy hair and whipping it straight up and across my head, where it decided to stick to my lips and then drag bright red lipstick lines across my face.

Most important stop of the day - buying a fuzzy black hat and gloves at Filene's Basement, which is actually upstairs in a mall type building and looks nothing like my 1964 era daydreams. Anne claimed that my new hat was cute but it gave me a sort of exiled-to-Siberia look for the rest of the trip.

We stopped in a falafel restaurant and read our CMJ guides to decide which shows to see. The guide is literally a book - 150 glossy pages of schedules and descriptions. Our panel showed up on page 41 and thankfully offered accurate bios for both of us. The number of times my bio has been distorted or just plain wrong is startling.

Over the last couple of years I have developed a basic strategy for attending festivals. I have decided not to care. Browsing through the guide I made note of scores of shows I wanted to see, but knew that the likelihood that I would get to any of them was extremely small. It is better for me not to fixate and be disappointed; I enjoy myself more when I have no expectations.

Hours receded - what did we do? Most of the gaps in time that day and for the rest of the trip took the form of wandering, cold and lost, or riding subways in the wrong direction. We met Anne's brother in Washington Square Park in the middle of an anti-police rally that he didn't know was happening when he picked the spot.

Late that night we went to the CMJ opening party at Webster Hall. Anne introduced me to Douglas and I offered to hook him up with resources in Portland. I chatted with a nice woman from the Village Voice but didn't catch her name over the noise in the room. Someone told us that Belle and Sebastian would be playing a secret set. The news about Elliot Smith had trickled through and some people were stunned. Drinks cost $10 each and there were girls passed out in puddles of vomit in the restroom. We saw an amazing set from VHS or Beta and then went back to Jersey City to sleep.

Jumbled days

I had a dream about going on a long ferry trip and seeing a pod of Orca whales. Then it morphed into bureaucratic drama about the recall of candy, somehow related to vampirism, and I went on a long trolley ride and met Muffy Bolding.

The rest of the trip is a blur; the event too large, spread out across several boroughs, my friends likewise scattered here and there.

I met Richard for the first time at the Soft Skull offices and he was surprisingly enthusiastic; he even hugged me. It is a good thing I took lessons in the subject because the trip would involve many more friendly embraces.

At some point we had dinner with Karl and Allison. Max was sitting on the couch and as we talked it came out that she is roommates with Tennessee from Soft Skull. This is in fact a strange coincidence, given that I know Karl from my impoverished youth and Max, distantly, from Olympia. We caught up on friends in common, intricately connected groups of people who have been on the periphery of my life since the mid-eighties. I never thought I had anything in common with them but now that we are grown up this appears to have been more about fashion than facts.

We met Ayun for drinks and she gave me a copy of the new book. We talked and laughed and made arrangements to meet again. During Anne's editorial meeting I caught up with Justin Hocking for coffee and we talked about the books we are doing for Soft Skull (another coincidence - how strange is it that so many of my friends sold books to the same press, when none of us ever discussed our plans? Very strange is the answer). He mentioned that Jon Reitfors was visiting too, but I had missed him - this made me sad. We always seem to wander through a city just hours apart, never meeting.

Jess met us for dim sum with Lli and Opal, visiting from Pittsburgh. Lli showed me an illustrated road diary that is gorgeous, and I blinked at how tall Opal is -- the only lapbaby from Portland days still keeping pace with the growth of my own son. We waved goodbye to our Pittsburgh friends and walked up to ground zero, but only lasted a few minutes before the enormity of the site sent us fleeing. Jess graciously invited us to her apartment, and we arranged for Maia to meet us there. It was the first time Maia and I met in person -- even though we are doing a book together -- and a lovely time was had by all.

Another visit with Ayun - I elected not to attend a lice picking party but showed up in time to help stuff the new EVI into envelopes. Inky wasn't home but Milo sat on the couch looking at comics. He is so large - astonishing - the same age that Inky was when we first met, and looks just like her.

We had food at fantastic restaurants, guided usually by Anne's brother John. Thai, Senegalese, Australian - Australian? It was even a theme restaurant, but the food was excellent. The best dinner was in Jersey City at a traditional Indian restaurant, Christmas decorations blinking outside the windows. We went to Katz's deli for seltzer and later searched out Italian desserts.

The Utne showed up on newsstands and I opened it to see my picture; a mistake. I spent the better part of a day fighting off a panic attack that was hard to trace in origin but has to do with the notion of identity. I grew up mutilated, ugly. The fact that I have learned to manipulate my public image and trick people into using the word beautiful is a political choice. Something that derives not from vanity but rather from commitment to my own dear freakish community. I'm not attractive by mainstream standards. Nobody would ever dare compliment me in person. But I photograph well and it seems important to cultivate that dichotomy. I want to force people to reconsider the value of the image.

Our panel at CMJ went well. What else to say? I dropped into another session and stood behind Wayne Kramer. This was my only celebrity encounter during the event. He has excellent posture. I waited for Richard to finish his panel and then grabbed him and insisted he should go out to drinks with us. None of us knew of a good place in the area so we ended up at a sports bar, where we discussed marketing and publicity plans for our various books.

The best individual performance we saw was Carolyn Mark. The only full showcase we made it to was the K records session. This seemed rather silly since I go to K shows all the time, but on the other hand, I was feeling awfully homesick. We stood around in the cold forever chatting with a nice fellow from North Carolina. When we finally made it to the door a boy in a pilot's cap shouted Bee! -- it was Kenneth and we chatted for awhile about his new life in the city.

We went to a private CMJ party and convinced Ayun to come along too. The bouncer was overly familiar with me, some might say flirtatious, and in fact stood with his arms crossed, barring my exit from the venue. He was perhaps a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier but you know what? Nobody. Ever. Does. That. To. Me.

I've taken down scarier men in my time. Not quite as large as this one, but definitely more dangerous. But since we were at a fun happy party and he didn't know that he had just violated a huge Bee rule I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I had the element of surprise on my side; one strategy would have been to crack his fingers but instead I reached out with both hands, grasped him under the arms, and moved him out of my way. He was completely shocked and stood there, mouth open, staring after me.

During the subway ride home I lamented the fate of my cancer book. Anne pointed out that if I publish it I will become the patron saint of all pariahs. She didn't seem to think that would be the best career move.

On the way out of town we stopped in Brooklyn to hang out with Justin. He picked us up at the subway because of the torrential rainstorm that seemed to want to wash us out of town. We lounged around his apartment, converted from a warehouse, where he lives with other Glenwood Springs expatriates. It is in fact the only residence I've visited in New York that looks like my juvenile fantasy of a NYC life. On the way out the door I passed Jon Reitfors coming in - and we goggled and smiled and then said goodbye.

During the transfer to get on the correct subway for the airport I somehow managed to get caught in the doors -- completely trapped, unable to push them apart -- and my brain flipped through all the stories James told me about his job printing photographs of people killed or mangled on the Chicago subway system. Anne demonstrated superhero skills by yanking the doors open.

The trip home was uneventful. I watched television shows about competitive gardening and home renovation projects. The most puzzling was the one featuring the singer from Suicidal Tendencies, who allowed a macho crew of people to come in and do what they liked to his house trying to beat an arbitrary time deadline. Later there was another program about a postmodern building project back in my old Portland neighborhood - the weird house on the bluff, and all the various problems building it because no sensible mortgage company would pay for such a thing.

I turned off the television after accidentally encountering a real life medical series showing teenagers with gaping head wounds being treated after an accident.

To summarize: the trip was lots of fun.

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