I usually wake up from sleep every night at least twice to make the old man's journey down the stairs. My dreams are as vivid, though probably more convoluted and complex, than ever, but I often can't get back to sleep right away. Sometimes I move to the couch and read for a while. Other times I lay there in bed and think about things, half-asleep.
This morning I went through an entire process of making a book about the friends and acquaintances I have in this neighborhood of Northside. I imagined a book with photos by Annie Leibowitz, featuring odd pairings of image and text, stories, self-defining quotes, shots of familiar places in the area. I know of no other neighborhood full of so many interesting people, often socially-involved, eccentric, caring, weird. So many non-traditional and same-sex pairings. Doctors and architects living next door to struggling artists and laborers.
For almost an hour I reclined in the wee hours of our darkened bedroom fantasizing about this book. Black and white photographs. No bullshitting and no smiley-face setups.
Then, I think of the work involved. I remember how frustrated I've been for not having whole days for my own painting. I imagine trying to contact all of these people, coordinate the shoots and the interviews. I ponder the impossibility of getting Annie Leibowitz to even respond to the letter I send via some entity three times removed.
Yes, it ain't New York. So what? Even New York isn't New York anymore. I mean: Staples in Greenwich Village!? And the art scene there is dominated by Irony, with a capital 'I', stupid installation art propped up by pseudo-intellectual critical analysis. Where is Harold Rosenberg when you need him? I digress - Northside ain't New York City nor should it be. It is an anomaly within the ordinary.
Humans do their thing all over the world and culture often rises and falls inspired by the doings of the few rather than the many. I'm like so many other half-lazy slobs who dream of great things half-asleep in bed, in the wee small hours of the morning.
