January 15, 2010

Recapitulation

This detailed account of my Thursday is intended as a window into the life of someone who is currently “between jobs” (i.e. jobless—which is why I have all the time in the world to spend on my blog).

It’s pretty stupid and boring.

Honestly though, I don’t really know why I’m doing this—especially without photos, which might somehow justify the tedious and grossly underdeveloped prose. (It reads like something I would’ve written for a 9th-grade English class.) The closest approximation of a rationalization I can come up with is that I’d like to have some really terrible, shameful writing on the record to spite the rest of the content on my blog.

It’s also littered with hip NYC namedroppings and a cast of ancillary characters who barely qualify as devices. There is no symbolism or allegorical value to speak of. I’ve done my best to minimize foreshadowing… but that’s asking a lot and I’m not that good of a writer.

At best, it’s an exercise, an uncharacteristically intimate portrait of contemporary bohemia, largely unembellished albeit esoteric to the point of being skewed. At worst, it may be remembered as the first symptom of an otherwise untold descent into madness.

We’ll see how long it says online before I decide to delete it. (I’m tracking stats now so I’ll know exactly how many people clickthrough and read it.)

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1/14/2010

9:55 – Wake up. Already off to a late start. iTunes shuffle is doing a pretty good job of keeping me in bed (a few incongruous songs in a row is a sign to get my ass up), so I read about 15 internets—the Times, Gothamist, Hypebeast, Designboom, etc.—on my MacBook Pro before venturing into the kitchen to fix some breakfast. I think about making a donation towards Red Cross efforts in Haiti.

11:11 – I spend the rest of the morning working on a new version of my resume, which I started yesterday afternoon. (I’ve decided that I don’t like the bulleted list format for my previous work experience, but I’m struggling with paragraphs, which inherently look dense and unreadable.) It’s not going well.

At some point my roommate Tony wakes up and we probably shoot the shit for a while. He suggests that we get some lunch. I have leftover pork fried rice, which I made yesterday, but I decide that it will be just as good, if not better, for dinner.

12:52 – He wants to try a Filipino place called Umi Nom, a couple blocks up Classon, on the corner of Dekalb. I consider bringing my camera but I don’t (their website happens to have decent photos). We talk about Twitter during the short walk.

Umi Nom’s sign is painted over a ‘Coin-Operated Laundry’ sign. The logo suddenly reveals a striking similarity between Helvetica Neue Condensed—which I’ve been using for the header of my resume—and Impact, a font that I’ve never particularly liked (though it works for Umi Nom). As for the interior, the decor is natural and elegant, unambiguously Asian without seeming generic or contrived.

We end up splitting a grilled pork belly sandwich and a Filipino dish called Tapsilog. They are described (in the online menu, which presumably echoes the print one) as: “sliced pork belly, atchara, cucumbers, sweet chili aioli” and “house cured beef tapa, garlic fried rice & 2 eggs scrambled or fried,” respectively.

Both dishes are excellent. The sandwich is basically a Bánh mì (atchara is pickled carrots and daikon): the sweetness of the sauce complements an equally generous portion of super-tender meat, while the vegetables cut the richness and add texture. The beef, on the other hand, is at once more and less familiar: warm slices of jerky over a sparsely seasoned jasmine rice with two fried eggs and an essential side of rice vinegar. The beef itself is delicious; the rest of the calories are tasty but the dish seems less coherent as a whole.

2:02 – I get back home and back to work, alternating between researching potential employers and revising/reconfiguring my resume.

2:37 – I need coffee. I make coffee (a cup and a half worth of French press). I drink coffee.

3:30 – My resume is looking a little better. I’m finally satisfied with the copy but it still looks too busy and I can’t seem to get the spacing right.

I eventually have a (possibly deluded) epiphany and rework the header.

4:24 – I was hoping to finish by 4:30 (I specifically put on an album that would end by then) but it takes longer than I planned, as these things often do; any later and I would risk sending out cover letters at the end of the day, which I generally don’t like to do. I was also trying to squeeze in a bike ride while it was still light out, but I’m already past that point before I realize it.

I put on the another album, Disc 2 of The Bang Gang Deejays’ 2007 mix Light Sound Dance, hoping to finish before its runtime of 1:13:21.

5:14 – Coffee helps, but I still end up cutting it close. In my haste, I almost forget to hotlink the brand new PDF, so I have to spend a few minutes doing so in Acrobat. I finally send it nearly an hour after my self-imposed deadline and, just as I’ve finally prepared for my bike excursion, the album closes with “Sometimes” by Les Rythmes Digitales, a personal favorite.

5:39 – It’s not that cold out and I work up a little sweat during the 15-minute ride. It’s a straight shot up Classon to Kent, which takes me within a block of Brooklyn Bowl, my first stop.

5:58 – I’m trying to locate my keys, which I’m 95% sure I lost at Brooklyn Bowl on Saturday. I’ve been using a spare set since then, but the set that I lost has the only extant key to my U-lock, so I’ll have to buy a new one if I don’t track it down.

6:06 – No luck. I leave my name and number but I’m not expecting a call back. I head over to my friend Sean’s apartment.

I remembered to bring the Modern Sky Records compilation that I bought in China as a cheap and somewhat relevant gift (this was one of my preparations). He pops it into the CD player. It’s not that good: most of the songs are either too 90’s alt-rock or weirdly jammy.

Sean is also seeking employment (in independent music, hence the relevance) for some time now and we complain about job hunting, among other things.

7:32 – We eventually decide to grab a slice at Vinnie’s (instead of falafel at Oasis); the PFR will be just as good, if not better, tomorrow. I know Sean’s roommates to varying degrees and I decide to leave my bike at his apartment since I don’t have a usable lock. I smoke my first cigarette of the night. He has to stop at Matchless to pick something up. I wait for him outside, since I haven’t finished my cigarette, and I take the time to arrange to meet my other roommate Diego at Raandesk Gallery (see Images).

7:48 – The funny guy isn’t at Vinnie’s today. An older guy takes my order and somehow my slice is done before the two girls who ordered before me.

7:58 – On the way out of the restaurant, someone greets me on the street. I recognize Matt—a casual acquaintance at best—but he’s with someone and they keep walking in the same direction that Sean and I are going. We’re maybe ten feet behind them and it’s kind of awkward.

Sean and I part ways a block down the street when I head to the subway. I’m halfway down the stairs before I realize I’m behind Matt and his friend. Thankfully, one of them has to get a ticket so I pretend not to see them to save face and I walk about three quarters of the way down the platform, to the subway car that is closest to the NQRW transfer at Union Square. I don’t see Matt.

8:15 – The trains are pretty fast so I make good time to Madison Square Park, where I meet up with Diego. We find our way to 16 W 23rd Street, 4th floor, which appears to be some kind of shared office space that has temporarily been converted to a gallery.

The show is ok. While I knew that Jason Bryant worked in Kehinde Wiley’s studio, I learn that the two artists in the show—Bryant and Kevin Cyr—actually met while working for Wiley.

Cyr was actually the main attraction for me, since I was under the impression that his camper bike or kart would be on display. I’m disappointed to find that there are no three-dimensional works in the space, only paintings. I eventually conclude that Cyr’s ‘vehicular portraits‘ would make a good childrens’ book (I mean this in the best way possible).

As for Bryant, I was familiar with his photorealistic portraiture beforehand though I am rather surprised to see that he has incorporated trompe-l’oeil imagery (drawing inspiration from well-known skateboard graphics) into his latest work. I am undecided about this new development.

In any case, the complimentary wine helps.

8:42 – We leave. It’s still nice out, so we walk to Union Square. I smoke my second cigarette on the way to the Strand, my first time back since I returned from China. They’ve moved the bag check. Everything else is pretty much the same.

9:18 – We catch the L train right away even though I had to wait in line to refill my Metrocard.

9:31 – I decide that I want to get my bike from Sean’s apartment tonight instead of retrieving it tomorrow. Diego switches to the G train at Lorimer while I surface to figure out how to get my wheels. Sean’s still at Public Assembly so I call his roommate David, who I also know from college because we both had the same Arcade Fire shirt freshman year.

David doesn’t pick up but I figure it couldn’t hurt to walk to their place and try the bell hoping that one of their other two roommates might be home. As I walk under the BQE overpass at Union, I see a couple guys doing tricks on fixed-gears. I wonder if one of them is John Prolly.

9:49 – No one’s home. I arrange to pick Sean’s keys and listen to my iPod on the walk to and from Public Assembly. I smoke my third and final cigarette of the night on the walk there and I think about recounting my day in a blog post and donating money to the Red Cross.

10:24 – I get my bike.

10:33 – I return Sean’s keys.

10:50 – I get home.

11:00 – I start writing this blog entry.

Fin.

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