Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Archives for June 2003

by

I have grown so used to sharing a smile and common courtesy during my trips to the laundromat become a part of my routine that i perform without the slightest thought.

I never did much laundry when we lived on sixty-fourth street. I hated the room, hated how our kitchen window looked into it rather than out past it. The shed, called it, a badly enclosed former back patio that was always either frigidly cold or disgustingly humid. I would always pause at the rusted sink, running water over my hands to counteract the temperature.

When we moved to Reed street i stopped minding it so much. Laundry became a time to escape from the rest of my life, to hide in the basement, to sit on my old green throw rug doing my finger exercises in time to the rocking of the dryer.

The laundromat is somewhere between the two. But, really, it is down the block, around the corner, past the deli, and inside to walk down the thin alley between the washers and the collapsible folding tables to the big machines in the back.

There is the drudgery of getting there, of finding quarters, of the long short block that greets me and my overflowing basket as i turn the corner onto Locust. There is nothing like the rote of it, though, measuring the viscous detergent, laying the towels in first, feeling the ridges of the quarters as i thumb them down into the slot. I am transported into a measured state of calm, all synapses firing, body driven just by the routine and the sound.

There is a certain grimacing comaraderie to us, all toiling toward a common goal. The older black woman with her deep laugh lines and red shopping cart full of winter blankets i gave two quarters to so that she could dry her last comforter. The commanding matriarch barking orders to her clan of children in tropically tinged French kindly offer me a cap of detergent as she spotted me frantically shaking my empty bottle of Tide over a washer. The familiar fleet of chinese women, the owners, always folding, folding, endlessly folding such perfect creases that they would make Gap employees jealous. They have never spoken to me, except for one when my taped up ten dollar bill jammed their change machine.

Last weekend it was a woman, lithe and blonde, standing further down the aisle of dryers. Her movements were studied and decisive, perfectly exemplifying the routine we were both a party to. I mirrored her for a second, sending a a shirt flying away from me like a flag and then pulling it back to my chest, tucking the sleeves down and then in, pinching the collar under my chin as our fingers clipped it in the middle and then lifting my head, letting it swing down to half itself neatly.

She must have caught my synchronization, from the corner of her eye, and i turned to meet her stare with my laundry smile, wide but just slightly held in check, as if i was sharing a secret joke. I was met not with anything similar, not a smirk or grin, but with pursed lips and guarded eyes. Not the reception i had imagined from my newfound partner in folding.

What was she guarding against?, i turned back to my folding to wonder. Was it so hard to be pretty? Was every smile suspect? I kept my eyes down, concentrating on the lines. Lines and folds. All part of the routine.

By the time i was done my basket was so full that i had to use my chin to keep my comforter balanced on its top, and so i never saw the tiny blonde child dart in front of me until after a stern, “Honey, watch where you’re going.” I stopped, peering over my blanket to find an apologetic cherub face before me, looking around my hip and muttering “sorry, mommy.”

A wry grin forced me to releasing my chin-grip for a second as i turned to follow the child’s gaze to thank her watchful guardian, only to find young blonde woman, arms spread wide trying to capture a king-sized sheet into neat folds.

“Thanks.”

She half nodded in return, mouth obscured by her folding so that i could not make out her lips.

I don’t think she smiled.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/105700279218412555/

by

In our departmental manual there are examples of all the different types of health plan member ID cards that our offices might encounter, and i’ve noticed that after a few stock names like “John Smith” and “Jane Doe” that our members are a mix of fantastic heroes (i wonder what we charge to cover Action Jackson and Buck Rodgers?) and names that Bart has used to prank call Moe, albeit with altered middle initials to avert the punchline (I. R. Freely doesn’t have quite the same ring).

It’s nice to know that you work with people who share your mindset.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/105655947184665642/

by

I started writing a tiny blog entry about running and all of a sudden these three other entries came slamming into my brain all at once and i just started typing away, right there in outlook, not taking the time to untangle the thoughts from each other until i was done creating one big mess without a clear structure or narrative of any kind. Sort of like life.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/105655943462332094/

by

I couldn’t help but wonder: had she just bought it? She seemed unaccustomed to how to wield it, where to leave it — one of those extra-long black umbrellas with a crooked wooden handle, the sort that belong in brass umbrella stands. With all the rain we’ve been having, maybe she had enough of sodden hairdos and damp white blouses turning ever so translucent. Maybe her bumpershoot busted its spring one time too many. Maybe she enjoyed the way it doubled as a whimsical walking cane.

She could not decide whether or not it belonged on a coat hook, and it certainly wouldn’t fit under the table. Unwieldy, but aesthetically pleasing. One of the most elemental choices in life. Wound up hooked over the back of her chair, slightly swinging, pendulum-like as the waiters breezed by in their smart black slacks. Swinging, and I was half-hypnotized, tapping my fingers to the music and watching it, a third as tall as me, swinging.

Inevitable, when its swing swung too broad and found its hook sliding down off of the chair. As if in bullet time, i could almost hear the inaudible wood on wood scraping, scraping as it found its way slowly from the chair to the floor, now lying directly across the smart black waiters’ path.

Only five feet away, not so far; i could have easily leaned out of my chair to right it again. It wasn’t my place, though, to change how it had found its way to the floor, or what would happen next.

Everything is a domino, i thought, as the waiter tripped over the elegant black umbrella, then righting himself with a cross look on his face. He picked the fallen accessory up from the floor and offered it back to his apologetic patron, who was still slightly puzzled as to where to place her prized new accessory.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/105646321957465314/

by

I usually have an intense fight or flight reaction to opening acts that i have never heard before, which is increased exponentially when i am in a room small enough that any under-breath comments could be overheard between songs. I can rarely find anything to appreciate about these seemingly random (occasionally local) artists as i innerly triangulate between critique, ambition, and jealousy. Too self-absorbed. I could hit that note. Why can’t i be up there?

With James, i definitely did not have my typical urge to change him, ignore him, or to mentally replace him on the stage with myself. His stage presence made me think of a lithe French Stuart covering Dan Bern, which seemed somehow apropos to open a Bitch and Animal concert. During his first song, rather than bitterly wondering who would ever volunteer to listen to him, i was instead speculated on whether he shaved his arms — his perfect and smooth arms with their muscles churning hard as he pounded out major seventh chords on his guitar. Perhaps wax? How else could they get so smooth?

I didn’t love any of James’s songs individually, but on the whole he had an effect on me; not the same effect he had on Gina, Kelly, Kelly, and Kat, all of whom signed up for his mailing list. It only had one empty line on it by the time it made it to me, handily answering my own rhetorical question: That’s who’s would volunteer to listen to him.

Kat knows better than to ask me how i liked an opening act, and Gina knows me well enough to anticipate my response, so i’d like to think i gave them a pleasant surprise when i opened my mouth and said that i loved the way James used his voice. It was my second favorite thing about him after his arms (which i didn’t mention). It was lovely, a convincing baritone with ample vibrato that switched to Dylan-like whine as it got higher until it hit a Dan Bern’s sort of vocal equivalent of a cheese grater, but only for a second until he began to descend again.

The rest of the thought was, of course, which i would use in a much more convincing fashion if it belonged to me. The voice was indisputably his, though, and today’s reading of his site only proved how hard he must have worked to earn it… “James left college in the mid-1990s to write fiction. Somewhere in this murky chronology, the fiction became social, political, personal songcraft. His head full of Shakespeare, Ozu, Coppola and Bukowksi; James open staged his way through his senior year in state college.”

It goes on to detail that he feels there is a sort of innate lack of weight to what i know and occasionally love as contemporary acoustic music. I like to think the people i admire in the field, the Ani’s, Erin’s, Mulvey’s, and Bitch and Animal especially, have their own startling gravity that upsets your entire world. I’m not sure that James has found his own yet, but knowing that it is there to be possessed and manipulated is half of the step to being an arresting performer

I fled, fled so far that i didn’t talk about my own songs until conversation of James had long faded into the intermission. Well played, Mr. O’Brien.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2003/06/105613183070585065/