goodwoodenship

Polaroids

5pm walking up Broadway in New York, chilled to the bone trying to find a cinema showing Harry Potter that didn’t display "sold out until 11pm" on its banners. Passing under some scaffolding, by a well wrapped, well dressed guy clutching a cardboard container with one hand, who was frantically rifling through it with the other, a look of concentration and annoyance on his face, the motto on the container: "the box with everything you love inside"…

…bouncing through a contemporary art exhibition, (held by a group of 20 something British and American galleries on 60th), with Rupert Clifford playing a guessing game that involved deciphering physical interpretations of famous artist’s styles, him correctly guessing my rendition of dali. Peering from a distance of 0.01cm at a red red red painting, "some painting by Bottico" cried Rupert "let’s buy it", looking at the label: "Rothko 3.5 million dollars". Passing another sign "Please do not bring any artwork into the exhibition" and leaving behind a mouse made out of a flyer with Rupert’s bloody mary straw tied in knots to make the eyes…

…Later that night, seven of us in a metre square karaoke booth somewhere on 17th at 2am singing with big grins on our faces, convinced we were harmonising, microphone in one hand, mobile in the other. My brother in England, (7am), being the person on the other end of the line. Him hanging up halfway through the lyrics "It’s the terror of knowing what the world is about… watching some good friends scream "LET ME OUT""…

….Sat 9pm Wandering through midtown with a fellow brit trying to fulfill a craving for tea, having followed a group of affluent thirty somethings through the streets (reasoning they might know where a tea house was), instead coming across a collection of homeless and chess fanatics congregated on the metal seats and tables surrounded by closed and empty, yet fully lighted, food shops in the central atrium of the Sony building…

…Later, sitting on a traffic island in the middle of Park and 54th ringing everyone we knew in ny asking if they lived nearby and had tea, looking at the rows of empty lighted offices in the skyscrapers and trying to work out what the city would look like with no lights on. Concluded it would be ecologically sensible and atmospherically depressing…

…1am in Hiro while watching two girls gyrate and wrap themselves in white sheets while suspended from the ceiling, hearing the chat up line "What are you drinking?"…"A sidecar"…"Whatever it is, it has made you gorgeous"….

….Deciding with Jed at brunch on Sunday, hungover and having waited an hour and a half for our drinks and food to arrive, gazing wistfully at the plants beside us, that we should open a restaurant where all the food would be things that could be planted in flower boxes. We would thus corner the market in people who don’t want to wait and have the urge to graze and make moo-ing noises….

… with Rupert again, outside the New York public library, giving directions to an American lady who had introduced herself and her friend with the opening line "Do you have Japanese tourists in Britain? I ask because she is Japanese." Rupert’s directions: (playing up a plummy English accent) "Ah yes I know the place well. If I recollect correctly, if you proceed in an orderly manner in that direction and take a sharp and timely right you will find the place that you are seeking" the American lady muttering that maybe a taxi was in order. Then stating, in the spirit of friendliness as she was taking her leave, to Rupert, "you remind me of that bean chap… and King Charles" Rupert: "Madam, are you trying to imply that I look like a spaniel?"

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