Shane Malone - Eureka Street

As for seating arrangements, The New Yorker commented
wryly, 'the best seats will go to heads of state
who can prove that somebody wants to kill them'.
Despite what appeared to me to be the most spectacular
upheaval, I sensed
that New Yorkers were kind
of used to it. There seems to
be a type of permanent New
York facial expression which
settles somewhere between
energetic, aspirational envy
and a grudging toleration of
a state of permanent
inconvenience. It is as if the
whole city is engaged in a
relentless, suited conga-line
through revolving glass
doors, in restaurants and
alleyways, in cabs and subways,
up and down escalators,
even at points of play
and reflection like Central
Park ... on and on they go, conga-ing in one long,
gruelling sequence throughout the metropolis .The 200
Heads of State merely slow the rhythm
down a bit. But everyone keeps dancing.
AUDRILLARD ONCE OBSERVED that New Yorkers of­
B
ten eat alone and that no other creature in the kingdom
consumes its food in isolation. There is
something achingly true about this. The defining quality
of the city seems to be this strange fusion of exhilaration
and loneliness. To be in New York is to feel
weak and insignificant and terrified but it is also to
feel active and anonymous inside something much
bigger than yourself. New York offers a kind of odd
urban kinship-like belonging to a colossal neon-lit
orphanage. Of course the visitor to New York is one
step removed from all this. He or she floats just above
the city like a whimsical character in a Chagall
painting.
And amazingly enough, it was this same mixture
of exhilaration and loneliness which I remembered
feeling so keenly inside my virtual childhood.
The program Family Affair screened in Australia in
the '70s, followed the adventures of three children
who are brought to New York by their executive uncle
after their parents are killed in a car accident somewhere
in middle-America. Already installed in his
deluxe Manhattan apartment is an austere English
valet who is forced to become a kind of defacto nanny
for the children. The program revolved around loss
and the subdued acceptance of a culture which trades
the human and the familiar for a gruelling, spectacular
urge for 'more'. The enduring, melancholic tone
of the series was expressed mainly through the experiences
of the orphaned children negotiating their new
life, but also through the day to day disappointments
of the defeated executive, married to the corporation
with a string of well dressed, indifferent dinner partners
as his only adult companions. Supervising this
small community of despair was the English valet,
struggling to live as an Englishman in New York.
The grief of these characters
was so fierce it was as if the
whole series had been filmed
under the weight of the
crushed vel vet sky of its
opening titles.
It is an inspired folly, I
suppose, for someone staying
only a few weeks in a city to
I ' hope to achieve some kind of
\j
~- spiritual consummation
J 1 with a place: so I resigned
i1
\J t myself to the ghostly status
; If t of a free-floating Chagall
~ f character until one particu-
1 T t lar incident took place to-
wards the end of my stay. I
ll 1, ',
.J....u,...,. was strolling through the
hotel foyer when the Japanese Prime Minister and
entourage passed through the revolving doors (by this
stage I had become blase about brushing shoulders
with world leaders). Suddenly a security guard swept
me off my feet (actually, physically, picked me up off
the ground) and speedily and soundlessly shifted me
out of the path of the official party.
Now, under normal circumstances I would have
been alarmed by this step, perhaps even a little indignant.
But, I wasn't. I felt relieved, even elated-like a
child who'd finally been shown some attention after
persistent tantrums. I had materialised into something
that had the power to be in the way. I was an obstacle!
A modest but genuine impediment, I had (for one brief
moment l been tugged down from the sky to join the
conga line.
•
Rosie Golds is a freelance writer.
Product of the Month
From the Sharper Image Catalogue: the pool patrol
battleship. It comes complete with deck-mounted
squirt guns and paddle propulsion.
VOLUME 6 NUMBER 3 • EUREKA STREET 31