May Day
Happy May Day!
The city is magical today, and I have been travelling in it.
I took an hour off from my job to meet up with Emed, a stooped giant with a lead on a pushcart permit. He works at a coffee-cart commissary on 29th street between 10th and 11th Avenues. Mohammed, my new friend and guide in all things pushcart, says that he sleeps in the garage, which might explain his crumpled posture, his pinched demeanor, and his unusual color. Things have been gaining momentum at a slightly alarming rate, and the magical cast to the city may be partly due to sleep deprivation.
The block of 29th west of 10th is strangely composed, with a equal number of storage facilities, delivery services, and chic art galleries. I missed the commissary on my first time down the block, despite Mohammed's instruction that it was "left, halfway down the block." The second time, I asked a delivery man if there was a pushcart place and he gestured at the next lot, where I could barely make out a dark cavern behind dirty plastic flaps.
This week I have been learning the difference between confidence and momentum. Confidence is like momentum without brakes, and eventually without purpose. Momentum, on the other hand, I am coming to understand as a phase in the work process. I am learning to take the ride, where appropriate. There is the plan, there is the implementation. Planning has to be slow, and in our current culture, which places almost no value on planning, it seems as though very little is getting done. Planning requires a distension of the senses to their utmost, reaching out the fibres of the nervous system to feel out where things are beginning.
Implementation, the second part of the experiment, is fast and hard and blinding, and you just gotta hang on until its done. I guess. I'm still trying to lay this shit down. I've had to do a lot of work on plannning, and there are many new things in the air. But as best as I can figure, you have to keep collecting data until the end of the experiment. Then back to the lab to study the results.
We are under the sway of forces larger than ourselves.
Today those forces have met me up with Emed, and a Middle Easterner named Ali, who has a pushcart permit he wants to sell, and fast. I am struggling to keep up. Emed said I should get the pushcart before I try to get the permit. Ali seemed more poised. I asked where was a good place to get one fast. Emed told me about the "Chinesee man." Ali said the guy was really Indonesian, and that his shop was up on 60th street between 10th and 11th.
I bought some Camel cigarettes, lit one up, and called my boss back and asked for a second hour off from work. He said OK.
The way uptown on the far west side is lonely and beautiful. There are striking views of the city from the low-rise periphery. The day, which had been clammy, was turning to muggy. I took off my coat. On 60th street itself, there is an abandoned pool, as beautiful as it is sad. And then, there it was... (more text and pictures to follow)
Posted by Sam at May 1, 2003 11:37 PM
