I love New York in the summertime, which is to say, I love summertime after winter in New York. I am certainly not alone in this sentiment as the whole city becomes energized as the sun comes furtively back out and the humidity index starts to rise. By the time we enter July, a month full of rainshowers, humidity, and shorter office hours, summer happiness is in full swing, and that nervous energy that makes nyc so unique becomes infectious and impossible to avoid. There is nothing quite like feeling as though you’re living the good life of relaxation and leisure while not living anything remotely like it. All those activities that go on throughout the year in nyc—bike riding, day trips, concerts, eating and drinking—take on a different feel in summertime as they make their way outdoors. As everyone takes advantage of their time off work—my company’s handbook recommends that you use your vacation time in July—the city turns into a sweaty mass of new yorkers and tourists trying to make every day of summer count. I enjoy feeling like summer is slipping away too quickly as it gives new urgency to all my desired but unaccomplished experiences.
Who Shot Rock & Roll, on display through the 31st at the Brooklyn Museum, was surprisingly one of the best shows I saw in 2009. It was oddly underwhelming at the same time that it was deeply satisfying, in the same way that a chocolate covered strawberry never tastes as good as imagined, but in itself remains difficult to dislike. On the surface—despite the multitude of reviewers forced to discuss the deeper connections between rock & roll, celebrity and their constructed image, and the roll photography plays in mediating between the two—this show could be summed up as a crowd pleaser. While it is easy to roll our eyes at yet another Van Gogh or Dali exhibition, shows that appeal to our cultural understanding of “good art,” it is harder to make an argument against the type of images we simply can’t resist. Who Shot Rock & Roll goes deeper than this, however, not necessarily because the exhibition really is deeper, but because whatever the photographs lack the viewers make up for through the interest they bring to them.
It was a drunken and disheveled Syl Johnson I saw stumble about the stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg Friday night, gesticulating a bit uncontrollably and singing with all his inebriated soul. Not exactly at the top of his game, but somehow he still made the show; just not exactly in the way you might expect.
If I had to make two assumptions about Leonard Cohen based simply on his stage persona, seen during last night’s concert from a very distant seat at Madison Square Garden, I would assume he is deeply humble and too spry for a man of 75. Hat in hand as he bowed to his band, or waltzing on and off the stage during a ridiculous number of encores, stretching the concert out into a three hour ordeal, it was undeniable that Cohen was having fun. Somehow I would expect the youthful Indie bands I venture out to see to be full of grateful energy rather than an aging Canadian folk singer who’s reputation needs no confirmation, but I realized as I sat listening last night that Cohen was brimming with enjoyment. Speaking to the crowd after a few opening songs, he deep voice rumbling throughout the arena, he thanked us for coming, for braving the rain and the traffic, and said, “I don’t know when I will be passing this way again, so I want you to know….we are going to give you everything we’ve got tonight.” As the crowd surged I thought he had summed up exactly why I was there: who knows when Leonard Cohen will be passing through town again in concert.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the arrival of Labor Day, lovely as the long weekend promises to be, officially marks the end of summer. Offices such as mine end their summer hours and the magic of half-day Fridays revert back to those painful hours stretching themselves out before the weekend officially starts. Retailers have begun selling fall coats and winter skirts, and even though the weather should hold out for another month, people are making plans for that last summer trip before considering early holiday preparations. This summer was slow in coming, perhaps the east coast rain disguised it, but I have a feeling I was simply too preoccupied to realize it was here. Without the schedule of school semesters summer is now denoted by weather rather than time to spare. Still, it was perhaps the busiest summer of all.
