New Cities/New Soviets

August 18, 2003

Outage

The city was something else/shadowy bodies in the street/eyes flashing in the dark/finding our way by touch. I felt newly at home and oddly confirmed, explicit/how dark and strange every day is to me/finding my way by touch/eyes flashing in the dark.

My buddy Dan and his Molly made a down-payment on digs in the city (after two chaotic weeks of hard looking) just before the power went out, and dragged themselves over the bridge, and met me and my Molly and Jeremy (who is also Dan's brother). We met some neighbors for the first time on the roof, shared a meal and got drunk and watched the moon rise over the 14th street power station.

Jeremy took pictures too.

the Empire State was stilled

but Tompkins was alight/cops for one night instructed "hands off"

I almost cried with happy and longing for more than like this/which was, after all, no more than can happen any weekend in a college town/or up-and-down the Jersey shore...

but in the darkness beyond the fire-light something else was moving/people touching in new possibility

we met a chick with three new kittens and Jeremy touched them.


By day 2 it wasn't romantic anymore. Food was scarce overnight/restaurants and supermarkets stayed closed friday in the East Village (last to get power back). It was clear all businesses had been instructed "no responsibility if you choose to open" and fuck the hungry. Bloomberg, full of smug lies, falls asleep at the drop of a hat to demonstrate his confidence. We are being governed by a narcoleptic lizard.

Mol and I were pushing the cart up first avenue when the lights came back on, red&green "like christmas" said molly.

In the new light "like coming home after a trip and turning the first light on" Mol said. In the new light we saw a lot of hungry and tired people and we fed them --"first hot food in 36 hours!" One guy had walked to LaGuardia from the east village to meet his mother in case she had arrived, which of course she hadn't. I cooked him a BBQ chicken sandwich.

It was a hard night but it made us happy, and we took Saturday for victorious rest.

Posted by Sam at August 18, 2003 03:56 AM

Bloomberg's mantra through this thing was 'drink enough water'. hee hee, 'narcoleptic lizard', that's sounds about right. we were listening to the radio and people were calling in and it seemed that everyone held Bloomy personally responsible for the whole blackout, not because he actually caused it but just because nobody likes him. how much longer do we have to keep him? can't we have a recall? aw, california gets one!

i'm planning on being on ludlow friday night!

Posted by: Jimmy Legs at August 20, 2003 10:43 AM

swipes at the mayor ?

he could have your permits pulled buster

i suspect he eats small mams
like you and moll

Posted by: meat me at August 23, 2003 08:14 AM

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


Remember me?