Holm, Sweet Holm

Despite my general aversion to travel, I spent last week in Stockholm. Arrivals in a new city are always a bit blurry and emotional; one sees shapes, rather than specific landscape... a kind of reverse deja-vu, rather than reality. Gradually one acclimates and forms attachments. I remember moving to London... it was so grey and lonely; I couldn't imagine ever having friends and hanging out. 

But this was maybe my 15th trip to Stockholm; it has a kind of familiarity for me.  It is friendly; I can manage the geography and move among the islands with confidence. The coffee is wonderful... the streets are navigable and the traffic, even in the city at rush hour, is near-non-existent. Pedestrians have priority; and yet, for an incorrigible urbanite like me, it is very much a city.

In any European city the history is immersive. Although New York is centuries old, we are hybrid and new; we are a conglomerate of 'others' who more or less chose to make their home here. Besides 9/11, we have not fought wars on Manhattan ground, we do not have millennia of history resonating in our architecture, in our lore. Over the years I have traveled and toured, there was a kind of fascination with Americans.  We were the authors of rock and roll, of rhythm and blues and be-bop. There seemed to be ubiquitous curiosity about our culture.

This time, I felt a little reserved.  Yes, I traveled during the first Trump presidency but most of the world seemed to pass that one off like the anomaly we assumed it was: this will be be temporary... like a reality show gone wrong. We had jokes, memes. This time, people looked at me with a kind of skepticism.  What could we be thinking? Major issues of war, NATO membership, EU unity preoccupied the news. America the hero had turned into America the selfish narcissist. In a country where social democracy and inclusivity are prized, the general sentiment was 'appalled'.

It was a little reassuring to watch the Belgian summit on Sky TV, to appreciate the way these countries stood up for one another; after all, they are neighbors, they share a continent.  But all of them together do not have the economic power of the US; their very existence could be threatened by the New World Order... and suddenly, the values I was taught in 20th century America were off the table.  There is an ocean between you and Russia, Zelensky reminded Trump who seemed irritated if anything by this observation. Between allies-- between democratic nations, there is no ocean but a bond, a spoken or unspoken promise. We grew up with this assurance.

So I found myself engaged in endless conversations about our politics. Rather than getting a modicum of respect for being a New Yorker, I felt helpless and ashamed. Along with my Swedish friends, I ask every day... how could this have happened? No, we are farther from the sounds of war here, but I no longer have faith in any kind of fatherland or protective constitutional assurance; right has become wrong and wrong is being distorted into status quo. 

Sleeping in strange beds in different time zones always produces a unique set of dreams.  For some reason  I woke at 5 AM the first night with a memory of my first Au Pair job, during my college years.  In exchange for room and board I cared for the two young sons of a writer-in-residence at my school.  After a week or so of acclimating myself to something besides a dormitory cot, I found my employer visiting me in my bed. He reeked of bourbon and was aggressive and romantic and begging. It was a pathetic denouement of a person I'd respected.  I'd considered myself fortunate to have this opportunity. What to do?  I could not cause a scandal; I was familiar with drunk episodes from my own family, and knew it was my 19-year-old word against his.  So I managed it... I got up, I resisted.. I paced... I adjusted.  I should have ratted him out; it was unconscionable and invasive.  But why did this come up, 50 years later, in Stockholm? Maybe I was confusing one of those Nobel prize films with my reality... the place, the betrayal, the strangeness. The betrayal.

During the week I was there I prayed for the Pope.  He doesn't need your prayers, my Catholic friend told me; we need his.  But still, I prayed.  I also watched the film Conclave on the plane. Pertinent and worrying. Will this Pope be replaced by someone with less tolerance? Will we care, we in America who seem to be giving up our rights on a daily basis, who will, like Europeans for centuries, perhaps be persecuted for our very beliefs and identifications?

In Stockholm my Swedish friends welcomed me; they publish my books and my cds.  I can find these in the libraries and in store windows. Although it is not their native language, I feel read, heard. Today my French friends told me they were cancelling the retirement trip they'd planned for years.  They do not want to come here now. Before I left I saw Swedes boycotting Starbucks, McDonald's, Tesla.  I brought home a pound of Arvid Nordquist Franskrost coffee-- with ecologically produced paper filters.  Great quality, inexpensive. No one wants US cash there. On the plane back I watched an extraordinary film called 'Bird' directed by Andrea Arnold.  It was both depressing and heartwarming. And it was better than anything I'd seen in a long time that was made in the US. I also brought home a case of food poisoning from the plane... or maybe it was just the stress of arriving in a city where I used to know every building and street, the familiar homeless men and the East Harlem bodega owners. The aggregate sounds of New York-- the sustain and crescendo-- have been the musical soundtrack to my life. I am no longer sure of my city, of our future, of our culture. It occurs to me that maybe I should turn around and return 'holm'. 

Stockholm Syndrome

I was in Sweden last week.  There were those late-nights when nothing much was happening, including sleep, and I turned the television on in my hotel room.  Not inclined to pay for premium or anything else, I am always surprised to see what if any of American pathetic reality-fare makes its way into Scandinavian standard broadcasting.  The only thing I could find was Naked and Afraid, and a constant home-renovation network.  So it was CNN for me, to get a little home-news.  Unfortunately the big story my first day was the Harry-Meghan drama.  Right away this did not seem viable.  I can't imagine any kind of car-chase in Manhattan; it's just not feasible. But the endless hours of commentating, the speculations and comparisons and the drama... well, ad nauseam.  There was virtually no other news.  While I've given the demoted couple a certain benefit of doubt, it was a Trumpian moment for them.  I placed a theoretical bet that it would take twenty-four hours for the correction, and there it was-- the humble cab driver, with a reality check.  It made the King and his Queen-consort look immediately better.  Even Oprah might regret all that money she doled out.

Then there was the Columbian plane-crash survivor-story.  Yes, we all want to pray and believe in these miracles... but to replace reality with a fairy-tale is not only news-unworthy but fraudulent.  Still, their fate is unclear.  What is clear is the unreliability of these news platforms which in their desperation to achieve viewer popularity seem to have blurred the lines of journalism and reporting to succumb to the public hunger for drama. 

Two young men came by to visit yesterday and we fell into the inevitable recurrent theme of 'the good old days' when not only originality was prized, but we took for granted the solidity of information.  Fact checking, accuracy.  The actual version-- the truth.  It takes me way too much time and a semi-analytical brain to sort through daily accounts of events, medical claims and recommendations.  Every news platform has a slightly different version of things. Like an old person's eyes, it takes a bit of time to gain clarity.  Maybe it's the quick-firing in this internet age that encourages premature ejaculation of information before it is verified or chronologized.

One thing I'm here for, back in the US, is the basketball playoffs.  And as I've said before, the beauty of sport is there is a clear winner. There are playbacks, disputed calls, a few disparities and bad behaviour, but for the most part, they even out in the end.  Grudges and prejudices get diluted by the number of games... we watch over and over the replays and footage from all kinds of angles, and a decision is made.  Hardly anyone blames the faulty hoop or the greased ball or the score-keeper.  It's not an election, but isn't it a little pathetic that a large part of the population can't seem to process the official decision of a national political process? The electoral officiators do not seem to have the authority of a sports referee. 

My son and I had a great discussion today about the athletes who refused the vaccine.  My position was always a little controversial, but as a covid survivor who donated blood and plasma pre and post-vaccine, I still respect a decision by someone whose entire life depends on their physical health.  Part of the problem here was the lack of transparency and clarity on the science.  Once policy was determined, in a culture of personal freedom, we are not used to being compelled to do certain things.  People were still getting sick; the data was not solid.  And it shifted-- it evolved.  The virus remained one step ahead of us, and that was worrying.  

In Stockholm, aside from collecting dust on apothecary shelves,  I saw not a single mask.  Nor on the SAS crammed airplanes I took back and forth, despite perpetual coughing and sneezing and obviously ill passengers.  As long as it was not Covid, no one took notice?  The airline boarding forms, if one read the fine print, asked one to agree to wear a mask on the flight.  This was obviously ignored.  And back in New York City it's pretty much business as usual.  The East Village bars, and Times Square are packed... clubs, restaurants seem more active than ever.  People are joyful and unafraid.  Yes, I still have a few acquaintances who cling to outdated virus-prevention like a dysfunctional marriage.  But they are the unhealthy ones.  What is undeniable is the skepticism toward information-- the mistrust.  It is just misplaced.

Who is to tell us in whom we are to trust-- in God, as our money states? The value of the dollar fluctuates daily-- a few of our 'solid' banking institutions have crumbled recently; do we blame God for this?  Greed? The compulsion to amass sums of money beyond the use of any human being?  The competitive and swift transfer of multi-dollars for ideas?  The very backbone of our government is tested by the debt ceiling.  What happened to dollar-for-dollar economics?  I worked my entire life to receive a meagre social security check every month.  I put this money aside.  As a self-employed struggling musician, I paid twice what a payrolled worked deducts.  I was honest and reported and paid in.  Am I to be punished for being a 'solid' citizen?  

So I will still watch my man Jimmy Butler and Jayson Tatum competing for an NBA title-- men who are earning more in one game than I have earned in a lifetime.  More than Babe Ruth maybe earned in a lifetime.  I will watch the scores rise, and witness the baskets that make these up.  Unlike the news which comes afterward-- the debt ceiling talks, the CDC pronouncements and the stock market numbers, all of which are questionable to the likes of me.  I admire the basketball skill-- the performance-- the clarity of outcome.  Let the talking heads discuss the upcoming election endlessly... for now, at least, in Basketball I trust. 

The Poet Winks (ogonblicken)

The death of Tomas Transtromer last week felt sad for me.  My Swedish friends had gifted me all of his books, and although I could never summon the passion he seemed to elicit from his countrymen, I also recognize that poetry suffers from translation.  He seemed an underdog for the Nobel prize, though a Scandinavian frontrunner for years, and beloved by a certain cult of New York musicians like Tom Verlaine.  His interviews were charming, and while I was living in Sweden I learned a stroke had left him without speech, but still writing poetry.  Perhaps this informed his work; he was also unable to use his right hand, but continued to play piano, which he'd loved, with his left.  My image of him, from what I've read,  is that he became weightless and papery at his end, and dissolved into the mystical landscape he evoked.  We mourn not the man, but the fact that there will be no more poems.  Yet the ones we have will grow;  the Nobel prize assures this.  I dreamed of him-- of my Swedish ex-boyfriend singing a song I think I wrote for him, in my dream… but of course all of this disappeared in the morning.

I've always been obsessed with bed art.  Paintings of beds, sleeping women… people at their most vulnerable and most 'open'.  The way you must trust, in order to sleep--- trust your partner, trust your surroundings, yourself.  You must not fear being apprehended in the act of dreaming, when you are most naked, when you are maybe most beautiful.  The intimacy of sleeping with someone the first time is much more difficult than the sex.  Passion crosses over into love while you sleep and dream.  It is like fresh, wet paint that becomes a painting.

Of course people like Tracey Emin choose to throw this in our face, to blow it up, as artists do-- because the act of betrayal, of abandonment, is maybe most flagrant in the context of beds… of coverings and uncoverings, of couplings and uncouplings.    I swear to f---ng God I never slept with that woman,  one of my drummers used to assure his wife, because he'd only had sex with some woman in a bed.  But it calmed his wife.

Lately I find myself more passionate about art than about men.  I seem to have outgrown my expectations of people, and find myself drawn to art like a kind of religion.  The pursuit of paintings obsesses me in my non--working moments.  At night I scroll through auction after auction, looking for my mate,  the way maybe some people are searching match.com and OKcupid for human completion.  At an art fair this weekend, I was browsing the wares in some booth and one of the senior gallery staff kept trying to start up a conversation.  Finally, as I left, he asked to see my necklace.  I'm trying to flirt with you, he explained.  But I very seriously told him the brief story of my simple jewelry.  I didn't answer that I was trying to meet the art.

Something I learned from running an art gallery years ago-- is how to make a decision.  Because nothing in my life was ever really clear cut--- except these paintings.  There was a budget, there was a price; there were things that were possible or not quite possible, and I had to deal with the boundary of impossible.  I learned how to trust myself to make a selection.  I learned how to separate things that were superficially beautiful from things that would grow on me, that would reveal themselves to me, with time.  It is a lesson that informs my life, and one I cherish.

So Friday night I did bring home a painting, after agonizing between mine and another with which it seemed to be having a dialogue on the wall.  I felt like I was interrupting a conversation, a relationship…. but to take both seemed greedy.  And the one I brought home spoke to me.  It somehow had something to do with the Transtromer landscape which I had never quite grasped, but there in its mystical moonlight, I could sense this transition.. between evening and night-- between life and death.  All night I was sleepless-- maybe longing for its companion, even though the artist himself had been present at the sale and seemed emotionless about whichever one I selected.   I awoke many times, went into the next room and turned on the light to see my lovely painting, but felt its solitude, its strangeness.  Saturday I emailed the painter; could I pay him next week, etc. for the other… and late in the day he apologized; it had been sold.  So I felt this terrible sense of betrayal, of disappointment-- that felt disturbingly close to that teenage devastation when some boy you are longing for, who you know, you KNOW loves your soul and your essence, even though you have never spoken-- is dating the girl who sits next to you.

Of course, time is on your side when you are a teenager, and that boy eventually comes around… but the art--it is perhaps lost forever.  I briefly had a fantasy that one of my friends who craves my art had gone to the fair and stealthfully carried it off under their arm… but that was my teenage sense of betrayal, and I am adult and a professional.  I know when to stop bidding at an auction; I know about letting things go; I know that sometimes the dream is better than the possession, and my tiny landscape with the strange evening light and the one stroke of sky in the greenery will remind me of this, will suggest the longing, the unfinished question of solitude and the hidden mystery of Swedish night poetry and the left-hand-only piano melody soundtrack that will make it even more 'mine'.

Nun of That

So there’s a sign outside the rectory of a neighborhood church.  It’s on a side street--- one of those heavy old glass-covered black felt boards with the white plastic letters that give you a feeling of old-timey smalltown announcement-comfort.   It poses a question in all-caps…"HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT BECOMING A CATHOLIC?”

These days I find myself nodding and grimacing in the street, smirking and gasping, and downright talking to myself.  Maybe it’s age, isolation, a surfeit of irony that begs public release…whatever.  But the truth is, I have thought about becoming a Catholic.  I’ve also thought about joining the army, about prostitution, about marrying my best girlfriend in Sweden for the healthcare and companionship… and many other things.  But ‘enlightened’ and cynical as I am, I have always had an affinity with cathedrals, icons, Mexican votive paintings on tin—Giotto, Fra Angelico.  Personal devotion to a concept of God—of divine love and forgiveness--- as opposed to most of the men I’ve wasted nights over—is appealing. 

Maybe it’s the Goth thing, or the fact that my first true Hollywood crush was Jeffrey Hunter in King of Kings… but I grew up on a street with Italian and Irish families and my playmates’ objections to their religion fascinated me.  As did the rituals, the communion dresses--- the mysticism, the music.  We had an Irish nurse who often took us to mass (we got a Good Humor as reward) and I’d pretend the church was my castle and I was a Princess.  I loved the velvet plush seats and the smell of old wood and incense.  The choir, the organ… and the stained glass….it was magical.

My lapsed Catholic friends seem so ‘grounded’ in their anti-beliefs.  And the bad boys were oh, so bad—Jim Carroll, and my first boyfriend who’d been an altar boy and made me have sex with him in a back pew—at night, of course--- the church was empty.  I kept waiting for a thunderclap, or for one of the hanging lamps to drip hot wax on us… but nothing happened.  

For most of my life, if I feel really badly about something, I visit one of the grand Manhattan churches –at off hours, generally. Whenever I need to ask God for some favor, for some healing or a little support… I go Catholic.  I feel slightly closer to the celestial ‘ear’.  And unlike Starbucks, or the ‘free’ internet in a café, you don’t really need to buy anything.  No one gives you a dirty look if you don’t pay for a candle.  You can cross yourself, listen to the choir rehearse, kiss the foot of the Virgin statue, kneel, or have a cry--- you can even drink a coffee and no one bothers you.   I feel ‘safe’.  I feel calm.  I confess and apologize, and leave by the side door. 

I used to wonder if there was a website like digitalpriest.com where people could confess and be forgiven…if it would not be wildly successful.  An app--- an ichurch, with your choice of music and architectural style… I used to wonder if they installed little confessional boxes on Wall Street, where traders and hedge fund managers could ‘mail’ little anonymous slips of paper, get things off their expansive David-Barton-buff guilty chests…maybe inside bathroom stalls.  Guaranteed privacy, guaranteed direct-access to some religious figurehead, like a kind of Oz priest—who would dispense immediate  forgiveness for insider trading and general infidelity and lack of compassion.  Or maybe they would get an email:  Say 3 Hail Marys and send a check to your nearest democratic headquarters.  Or to some very edgy and dysfunctional kickstarter campaign.   Maybe they would slow down a bit--- maybe they would consider at least the concept of guilt---or right and wrong, the way they do not.  

People in church these days look at their phones.  They text, and sext and read email.  The bandwidth of religion in our lives is not prominent.  So yes, it seems simple and clear and pure to give up all of my priorities and convert.  To surrender to some version of a path to goodness.  But I don’t.  I keep my habits and my possessions and my ex-boyfriends and my passions.  I cannot give them up.  The thrift shops and sidewalk trash piles and the success of ebay all attest to the fact that this is a culture of consumer-hoarders---excessive money, constant clothing changes—make-up, accessories, food of a trillion varieties--- there is not a single person among us who doesn’t own one too many of something.  

But most of all, I am sick of the ever-increasing eruption of public confession.  I am sick of these ‘me-novels’ and songs and endless memoir-writing and the trillions of instagram photos and facebook posts like a virtual endless dump.   I am sick of Miley Cyrus comments and Beyonce’s stupid blond hair and these pathetic TV real estate agents.  I am sick of seeing rich housewives cry on camera and the WEN guy and the QVC network ladies.  I am sick of narcissistic politicians  and the hundreds of botoxed talking heads who create TV shows out of dumb tweets and bad cell-phone footage of celebrities in their bikinis with their gut hanging out, or punching someone in the face.  

Maybe if these people went to church and saw a priest they would filter their bleeding hearts and tweets and kiss-and-tell or didn’t-kiss-but-told-anyway.  I don’t want to see your 5^th engagement ring on my facebook page or your dog’s dinner or your solicitous kickstarter projects.  I want to hear the sound of one hand clapping and a legless person kneeling.  I want forgiveness and generosity and music that prays.  I want every Wall Street fatcat to remove their rolex and place it on the wrist of a homeless person.

And whats-your-name Biden…grow up and pay your rent.  We have seen more of you in that ridiculous white sheet than the entire Syrian civil war crisis this week and you need either some true religion (not the clothing kind) or an old-fashioned weekend in the can.

Midsummer Night's Dream

Did you ever listen to Swedish rap music? It’s a kind of paradox. A little like Swedish blues. How much is there to moan about in this beautiful country where health care is universal and excellent elder care is a priority; where a year of first-class childcare costs less than a monthly metrocard? It’s a good thing I can’t understand the lyrics because they’d probably be parroting the negativity and anger of American hip-hop, the way Europeans all used to wear our styles, play our music, and consume our toxic TV sitcoms like M&Ms. Maybe. Maybe not.

Because this summer, in Sweden, I noticed a small difference. American music isn’t quite all over the charts the way it used to be. On the national news, violence in Iraq is on the roster, but mostly, besides the emigration of Beckham, there is little mention of the US. In financial news one hears relentlessly how the dollar, day by day, is hitting new lows. Besides always-buoyant sales of Springsteen and Dylan tickets, and the omnipresent CBGBs and Ramones T-shirts, I now observe more of Stockholm in New York than America in Stockholm.

And more than anything, you notice Swedish quality of service. In the metro, in cafes, at petrol stations--- there are young, stylish people doing these low-level jobs with dignity. They are kind, open-faced—happy to help. They do not expect and often will not accept gratuities. Generally there is not this intense competitive drive to make a hedge-fund fortune because success and happiness in these countries has more to do with deep-seated values than a brand-new mansion in the Hamptons. It is still cool to play music and be good. And except for the very insecure nouveau-trendy in Stockholm, dress is casually stylish but not excessive. Besides young Goths, one rarely sees any of the conspicuous make-up which New York women seem to require these days.

I spent a whole evening talking to a quasi-famous aging punk rocker. He does construction during the day-- supports a family, plays music at night. He likes it that way. He talks about socialized medicine, criticizes the American system, understands little its obsession with money. Like many Swedes, he is so great-looking that it hurts…he is completely unaffected, scarcely notices the gorgeous women that lean on his stage…is glad for the 8 month paid paternity-leave he was granted for each of his 3 kids. Was happy to reminisce about the New York scene with me, walked me cordially back to my hotel-room like a gentleman.

My last night I met a tall, long-haired beautiful man with a weathered leather jacket and the air of a woodsman. For his living, this guy paints murals. Not just any murals—he decorates the walls of an old Swedish iron-mine north of the Arctic Circle—miles of them-- 1500 meters below ground, so the miners—in the long, dark, frigid winters, will have beauty and light around them while they work. For this he is paid a stipend by the government. A character out of an unwritten Michael Ondaatje novel. He knew about music, too..about poetry, about art. The Guinness book of records lists the world’s deepest painting as some cave, maybe 1100 meters down. So why not correct them, one of my bandmembers asks? He laughs, nods his head and says in Swedish something like ‘You crazy Americans.’ Tonight I am looking at his work online. He is painting his dream, half a mile beneath the midnight summer sun. Miles to go.

Floors below me, in the tunnels of New York, I pray someone is still risking arrest to spray his version of a dream on some wall. That the dreamers will paint faster and further than the MTA workers hired to remove their work. That all the young, shivering or sweating artists who came here with any dream will not wilt and die in the face of the greed and excess and false gentrification which has become my great city. That lack of acknowledgment will not cause them to pack their few belongings and move on to a place like Sweden. It is tempting.