The Unloaded Camera Snapshots were launched as an exercise to document the “snapshots” of everyday life in Paris with Paris Scratch. & continued upon my return to NYC. The exercise consisted of “taking” a written “snapshot” per day. There was good reason for this: I, like other New Yorkers, had become, as Flora Lewis described it, “inured to the ravages around them they scarcely notice anymore.” A deadening of our senses &, never mind our idealism, allows us to believe we’re outwitting our environment. A.E. Housman noted: “Having drunk a pint of beer at luncheon, I would go out for a walk. As I went along, there would flow into my mind, with sudden & unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or 2 of verse, sometimes a whole stanza …”
- Head in a Jeweler’s Window
I stood in front of the Madison Avenue jewelry shop window, under the awning, out of the rain, shivering, holes in my sneakers, mind wandering; it was late & they had already removed the jewelry from the velour busts & displays & locked them in the vault. & there I stood, wet, staring at this phantom display, a faded velour, taupe bust, upon which the ghostly reflection of my head fit perfectly as I repeated the word “DUBIOSITY” over & over, not sure it was a word, but quite sure it was a condition, maybe psychosocial, marked by unhappiness & bewilderment.
- Banging the Trees
Every time the sanitation guys finish sweeping, the breeze drops more leaves in their path like trees are capable of spite. The crew is tired of the wind making fools of them. They finally seem to have a solution. First they try shaking the slender trunks of the young saplings not yet 10 years old like they’re wringing the neck of an ex. “Pain-in the ASS!” But this produced only mixed results. The leaves just weren’t letting go. Finally, they take their brooms & begin banging on the branches until the trees surrender a few leaves, then more leaves & finally all of their leaves & one of them declares: “FUCKIN’ BRILLIANT!” as they swagger with a sense of accomplishment to the next tree. He is holding his broom over his head, yelling: “Get this BITCH!” as he readies to take a swing.
- Drive-By Shoot
MB is French & asks me, “What is that thing they do in Los Angeles when they ride in cars & shoots at people?” “Drive-by shooting?” “Oui, drives-by shooting.” That’s what happened to her boss, an up & coming young fashion designer, in Soho, on West Broadway, near Brentano’s, 1 early Autumn eve. “THEY shoot at him & then drive away quick. They miss him by this much only.” She held her arms apart. “3 feet?” “Oui, he was true shaken up.” But it wasn’t because it was him so much as the fact that he was just any him at that moment, like a tic independent of any- thing we might call the sympathetic nervous system.
- The Fender of Reverie
Reverie has cast me out from under the looming, gleaming November clouds that express a curious symmetry like bullets laid out on a dingy formica night table. & in the strange tangle of this East Broadway intersection I see drivers losing their minds, motors losing essential fluids. & suddenly a truck flies by all blurry heading north — no time to kill. & there’s 2 kids in full askew-cap insolence, on bright skates, clinging to the truck’s fender skirt howling, “Faster! Faster! Motherfucker!” Surfing the uneven terrain with all the gusto they’ve never been able to spend on anything else. They will retell this story countless times throughout their lives.
- Animal Rescue Squad
We are eating breakfast at Odessa like we do almost every Sunday morning. We spot a young squirrel, lost, terrified, sprawled out on the walk. “I think it’s in shock or something.” Everyone is staring, some wondering what to do, mostly just staring & then walking on by … until a young girl reaches down, not listening to her mother’s hysterical warnings to leave it alone: “You get rabies I’m not takin’ you to no emergency room!” The girl picks it up in slow motion like an important scene in a movie, & places it gently in her rain jacket & carries it across the street to the park, where she lays it down in a restful patch of grass. Our warm sense of wonder soon returns to uneasiness because now we are back to talking about ourselves again.
- Overlooking Central Park
I walk uptown a long way in the rain to where CB babysits the young girl while her parents are somewhere in the world doing business. VH is already there & I am soaked. My green hi-tops are heavy with rainwater. The little girl is already asleep. I strip to my underpants which VH blowdries on her knees with me still in them. She places my sopping sneaks & pants on the radiator. I wander around the carpeted penthouse in my blow-dried underpants & a satin robe that must be the mother’s & I touch vases & sculptures worth thousands of dollars each. We eat delivery-boy sushi & watch an Audrey Hepburn movie with VH wearing nothing but a knock-off of Hepburn’s famous skinny black dress, sprawled across the bed from which we can all see Central Park. CB takes photos. What is it about standing in your underwear in a bedroom with 2 women, staring out a window, overlooking Central Park, with a Heineken in 1 hand & a cocktail in the other?
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bart plantenga
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