Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Thiis story goes by many names.<br />
The first of which was:<br />
OH, HELVETICA!<br />
G TRAIN<br />
EVERLASTING<br />
That was pretty good, but the<br />
next one was:<br />
How lovely. But thien I had<br />
thought of:<br />
99 CENT<br />
MEMO PAD<br />
AND A WILL<br />
TO LIVE
But really, this is<br />
just a letter.<br />
And it's a letter<br />
for you.<br />
<strong>For</strong> me, though -<br />
this will be for faith.<br />
It can be for anyone<br />
you’d like, for you.<br />
But for me, it will be<br />
for faith.<br />
Ahem -<br />
<strong>For</strong> faith.
Delays always upset me. Not<br />
because I’m being held up, but<br />
because they are almost always<br />
the best excuse. When anyone<br />
asks where you were, why<br />
you’re late, the MTA, despite<br />
its universality, can always be<br />
villainized, as if you were the<br />
only one using it, as if it were<br />
your car on the tracks that put<br />
the breaks on, that had a fire,<br />
that had “a sick passenger” -<br />
something like that.<br />
But because of that, after the first<br />
few times you use that excuse, it<br />
starts to fall flat. In a crystal clear<br />
boy-who-cried-wolf fashion, the G<br />
train was on time and you woke up late,<br />
even if the first two ran express<br />
right past you that morning.<br />
It would have to be a true event, some<br />
sort of massive 45 minute blockade<br />
that held you up next time for anyone<br />
to believe, and even then - even if they<br />
had four other coworkers on that<br />
same train, they’d think you got on the<br />
one just after the dust had settled,<br />
and squeezed yourself in for the<br />
guilt trip.
Morning trains are always packed, but almost less threatening, in a way.<br />
Everyone feels as though they’re in the same situation. If you’re in a train<br />
that’s leaving at 8:51 in the morning, you can live with the security that<br />
everyone else on that train is going to be exactly as late as you are. The<br />
moment you step off, the stairs will move at a fixed but still impressive pace.<br />
No one will slip even if it’s raining, the dogmatic nature of their American<br />
work ethic will get them there fast, even if it’s nowhere in particular.<br />
I had a friend that told me that you’re supposed to look at -<br />
well, not that you’re supposed to look at, but that everyone looks at each<br />
other’s shoes on the subway. I wore a decent pair today, white sneaker<br />
bottomed leather oxfords, one of my favorite pairs, but it’s not about that<br />
right now. He told me it’s a method of looking at each other’s class, and<br />
finding out more about a person without looking at them. Maybe that’s why<br />
people buy $500 sneakers, was my first thought.<br />
Really, though - that’s<br />
why people might wear<br />
cheap payless or rag-tag<br />
sneakers, even if they can<br />
afford something better.<br />
They’re wearing them so they<br />
specifically go unnoticed,<br />
unassuming that you wouldn’t<br />
even spend time looking at<br />
their shoes, let alone the<br />
rest of them - and you’d move<br />
on to the next pair.
Maybe people wear those shoes as a cloaking device.<br />
adorning those 20 dollar black champion running<br />
sneakers isn’t telling us that you’re going on a run after<br />
work. No average person works out, anyway.<br />
You want to slip by, face turned and headphones in. You<br />
want to be one of many, under the blanket of rush hour,<br />
another moving body going to work.<br />
The second I get a seat, I start drawing those people. The ones<br />
that are trying to not fit in, but skip out. I figure that might be an<br />
invasion of their space, and I don’t mean to do it to bother them.<br />
If they were to leave the car scott-free, though, they might<br />
think that their ploy is working. That they can walk around like<br />
a ghost and get away with anything. If those businessmen didn’t<br />
see me drawing their profile before looking down too quickly<br />
and pretending to check their email (when, mind you, wev’re so far<br />
underground that there’s no service), they would probably feel<br />
so invisible that they’d wind up picking their nose in a meeting. I’ve<br />
probably saved a few jobs already.<br />
Maybe a couple dates, too. That’s a nice thought - I’ve always been a<br />
romantic.
Coming home, it’s a different story. Anyone<br />
can be a victim to my wandering eyes. <strong>For</strong> a lot<br />
of people - I guess I mean specifically women,<br />
but it’s really anyone - that might be a really<br />
horrific thought. What am I doing, with my<br />
eyes? Why are they wandering in that manner,<br />
what shapes are they following, what trends?<br />
What I am doing, though, when I look<br />
at these folk, is finding the lightest<br />
and darkest parts of their faces, the<br />
highlights and the shadows. I make<br />
a big deal out of the word shading,<br />
what a horrible piece of vocabulary,<br />
as if you’re the one throwing shadows<br />
on the people you’ve drawn<br />
flat as a chip.<br />
Value. What a phenomenal piece of<br />
terminology, one of my favorites,<br />
outright. The edges and angles of<br />
the visage, or a coat, or a shoe -<br />
willing them into existence on the<br />
page, finding their weight through the<br />
rebounding light that pours over them<br />
from the overhead lamps. Every line is<br />
another stroke of a chisel, perhaps<br />
this is the same way that the old<br />
masters felt when making the memory<br />
of a man in marble.<br />
Needless to say, I am not unclothing folk in<br />
my head, unless that be the explicit topic of<br />
the day. "Think of everyone in their underwear"<br />
is such a horrible piece of advice and I might<br />
wish death upon whoever thought that up. You<br />
would have no idea what people are into. I<br />
myself would feel terrified to be undressed<br />
like that, or completely out of place being<br />
clothed. What if there is someone pretty on<br />
the train? I don’t want to think about it.
I love noses. It’s our most<br />
valuable part. Not to say<br />
that, if you were to kidnap<br />
a fella and chop his face<br />
flat you would make the<br />
same profit on the black<br />
market as an ivory poacher<br />
performing a similar act.<br />
Noses have value. They have<br />
the deepest shadows, the<br />
brightest whites. They have<br />
a space in the real world.<br />
Most would say that they<br />
could know someone by<br />
looking at them, like the<br />
color of someone’s eyes<br />
lies on one of those<br />
pantone sheets, 7.6 billion<br />
options but only one that<br />
matches.<br />
If you were the<br />
machete wielding<br />
madman taking off<br />
people’s noses<br />
in the subway, you<br />
could leave one<br />
at someone’s<br />
doorstep and they<br />
would know exactly<br />
who they would have<br />
to avenge - even if<br />
that person behind<br />
the door was blind.<br />
They would pick the<br />
nose up, feel the<br />
long ridge, the deep<br />
pockets, and rush to<br />
the hospital before<br />
making their plans<br />
to dress up in black<br />
and kick your ass as<br />
revenge for turning<br />
their brother into a<br />
hack job voldemort.<br />
Maybe I’m going too<br />
far with this. I have no<br />
intent of cutting off<br />
people’s noses, or buying<br />
a machete, or becoming<br />
a hack job voldemort.<br />
It only crosses my mind<br />
because so often I start<br />
with the nose, and then<br />
we’re at hoyt or jay<br />
street and everyone has<br />
somewhere to be and I’m<br />
left with a whole lot of<br />
lonely noses for myself<br />
to smell the flowers<br />
with. Really, it’s only<br />
april, but I suppose I’m<br />
ready, more or less.
It’s raining today.<br />
I always wear the wrong shoes for the rain. You<br />
know me, I’m not a fan of boots. I had always<br />
told you that the platforms of boots always<br />
wigged me out - they lied about a person’s height,<br />
they didn’t feed naturally into the rest of the<br />
boot, they were always big and hefty and made<br />
of rubber. Maybe it’s emasculating. Maybe I’m being<br />
a dumb boy.<br />
I had stolen a salad from a bar that was for<br />
strictly entertainment today. Of course, I took a<br />
paper plate instead of the company provided ceramic<br />
ones, so the folks there thought I was behind the<br />
scenes the whole time and was just getting a bit<br />
hungry in the moment. That being said, HR is getting on<br />
my ass for not clocking out for lunch break. I never<br />
do because I thought they wouldn’t pay me. No one<br />
notices when the intern is gone, anyhow.
I decided to just go for a walk rather<br />
than taking an honest to god lunch<br />
break. I walked right up to york street,<br />
as if I was going to hop on the train and<br />
leave, right then and there. Of course,<br />
I needed to clock back in, so I decided<br />
against my obtuse journey down to park<br />
slope. You should really, really know<br />
though, how glad I was that I walked all<br />
the way out. As soon as I turned around<br />
- I saw a halal truck.<br />
An honest to god halal truck. In DUMBO!<br />
I can’t tell you how many times I looked<br />
up where I could get falafel and rice,<br />
how many times I’ve said “okay google,<br />
halal food near me” out loud, in public,<br />
to my phone. This was it. Deliciously<br />
seasoned food, carbs and veggies and<br />
protein - right there in an aluminum<br />
container. <strong>For</strong> under 7 dollars. I could<br />
not contain my excitement then, and I<br />
could hardly express it now - I walked<br />
down to that truck like I was late to my<br />
own inauguration.<br />
What got me about this truck, though,<br />
was the guy running it. He clearly had<br />
made a few friends vending dishes<br />
to the people, fist bumping a few<br />
construction workers who walked<br />
by, no commercial intent in sight. This<br />
was someone who had a job, friends,<br />
personality. He was in charge of my<br />
meal. He made it, packaged it and put<br />
it on the metal platform extending<br />
from the window.<br />
But he hadn’t told me it was mine - he<br />
plopped it right on the platform<br />
as I walked up and got out a 10. I<br />
handed it to him, he handed me the<br />
change, and looked the other way.<br />
Now, in this moment, one might think,<br />
oh, everybody else gets the sweet<br />
talk, but not me? Did I look at him<br />
funny? Really, rather than worrying<br />
about what I might have done wrong, I<br />
wound up liking the guy a bit more. He’s<br />
not lying. This is a genuine human being,<br />
that feels and reacts, that exists in an<br />
environment through his preferred<br />
method, that made my lunch. I’ll make<br />
sure to come back, maybe I’ll earn a<br />
fist bump by the end of it.
cisgendered, heterosexual white<br />
man from an upper middle class<br />
family. I am immensely lucky to be<br />
the individual I am, there’s no two<br />
ways about it - my tuition is paid<br />
and my stomach is full and there is<br />
nothing more in this universe I see<br />
myself demanding, unless I’ve really,<br />
truly, honest-to-goodness<br />
earned it.<br />
I guess I don’t know why I believe<br />
I’ve earned safe passage after I’ve<br />
swiped at the turnstile.<br />
You know who I am -<br />
Yes, I have paid 2.75, and I do have<br />
expectations for the G to show<br />
up, at a point - any point, really -<br />
but today, I suppose my point was<br />
missed. It was only court square<br />
G trains that weren’t running - not<br />
a single one on the schedule for<br />
the next 30 minutes (when I would<br />
have my class). I know another way<br />
to school, but it’s so absurdly out<br />
of the way that it would be better<br />
to bite the bullet and make the 40<br />
minute uphill walk and settle for my<br />
own lateness.
Regardless, I would be taking the F to Jay street and transferring<br />
to the A or C, which would take me to the other clinton<br />
washington stop - the one that was 10 minutes away rather than 3.<br />
Realistically, it wasn’t too bad at all, but it was a sore kick after I<br />
had actually woken up that morning to get to class on time (which<br />
was a first, I won’t lie).<br />
I exit the F, and begin my search for a blue train to take me the rest<br />
of the way. One almost immediately arrived, to my convenience, so I<br />
boarded without a second thought. This would be the first decision<br />
contributing to my undoing.<br />
Understanding my error, I send an email to my professor, informing<br />
them of my woes. There was a reason for my desire to be early, of<br />
course - I had a presentation that day. Attaching the files necessary<br />
for my slideshow and sending the email off, I figured that I would<br />
be back right quick, no scuffs or slip-ups, standing in front of the<br />
small class of about 7 to use every ounce of charm I had in my<br />
body to weasel out of further questioning.<br />
I got on a train back to Brooklyn in order to at least show up<br />
to the class that my peers explicitly expected me to provide for.<br />
I leaned all the way back in my seat, this train far less crowded<br />
than the last. I realized that, logically, the packed train in the<br />
early morning meant that the first A train I boarded was inevitably<br />
headed to Manhattan to drop off folks at their 9 to 5. Maybe I<br />
projected myself onto them - those working folk that completed<br />
presentation for pay, not the other way around. Maybe I wanted to<br />
make 5-6 figures a year rather than costing it - or rather, felt it a<br />
bit more passionately that particular morning.<br />
Most rational folk understand that if you don’t switch tracks in<br />
a larger station, that is, a station with multiple platforms, you’ll<br />
probably wind up going in the same direction.<br />
I saw an opportunity, I took it. Fast acting is only effective when<br />
thinking is involved. When it’s not, you’ll wind up in Manhattan when<br />
your class in Brooklyn has just begun.<br />
However, lost in these thoughts, I looked up to see the stop just<br />
before my own being skipped by the conductor. This was a welcome<br />
sight - express trains are always nice. Unless, of course, they were<br />
to skip your stop. And the one just after it.
I got off the train, upset, disoriented, a bit sweaty - the works.<br />
Lugging myself around the station, I searched for any blue train<br />
headed towards manhattan, shrugging off the obvious irony, dead<br />
set on righting the wrongs that I had put upon myself but blamed<br />
the MTA for without a single moral question in mind.<br />
Lo and behold, manhattan bound A’s and C’s were just downstairs - a<br />
filthy platform, but a platform nonetheless.<br />
In that moment, I folded.<br />
Upon the arrival of<br />
the train (which took<br />
a reasonable four<br />
minutes), I stuck my<br />
head inside the next<br />
to empty train car and<br />
triumphantly checked<br />
for my stop that<br />
was almost comically<br />
absent from its<br />
displayed destinations.
I walked upstairs. I<br />
exited the station. The<br />
sky was blue and the<br />
air was brisk and the<br />
world was real again. I<br />
gathered what I needed<br />
from my surroundings.<br />
miraculously, I knew<br />
where I was.<br />
I saw poverty and those who<br />
thrived despite it. This side of the<br />
neighborhood was not brought up,<br />
it was not for show, but it was so,<br />
brutally, beautifully real. My whole<br />
body jolted when I saw Classon avenue<br />
- I knew I was one beeline away from<br />
bursting into a class well under way to<br />
beg for forgiveness like a priest on a<br />
dusty altar. But I knew that, at least the<br />
bones beneath my skin, the brain inside<br />
my skull, the feet that moved me so -<br />
they would all remain.<br />
I walked. I looked up. I took<br />
off my headphones. I knew it<br />
would be an admittedly less<br />
reasonable 20 minutes until I<br />
arrived at my class. But I knew<br />
I would arrive. Along the way,<br />
I saw a group of old friends<br />
meet for the first time in a<br />
long time. I was given the most<br />
genuine “excuse me sir” and<br />
“thank you” I had received in at<br />
least five years.<br />
So what would I ever<br />
need to complain about?
My music is getting old.<br />
I had the sorry experience of flipping<br />
through tracks on the way back home,<br />
with a bit of a hole in my heart<br />
(mostly because I miss you).<br />
Out of the hundred and twenty songs<br />
that had found their way into my “liked<br />
from radio” playlist, none of them<br />
seemed to fit. So I had listened to<br />
another playlist that I had assembled<br />
and sent to you a few months ago.<br />
Though eventually I came to a slow<br />
stop on one tune I couldn’t help but<br />
thinking that the those melodies that<br />
had captivated me for so long had<br />
finally died. Farmers rotate crops in<br />
order to keep the soil fertile, and<br />
lumberjacks sew new saplings after<br />
every tree cut - if they know what’s<br />
good for them. I couldn’t seem to<br />
implement the same process here. The<br />
members of this creative community had<br />
been strained for their resources, my<br />
modern ability to consume this music has<br />
finally destroyed it.<br />
Modernity is the bloodiest sword with<br />
two edges - at least, that’s what they<br />
taught me in my course on Genocide.
in another course, I wrote an essay<br />
recently on a designer named Paul Rand.<br />
Mr. Rand is a big deal, and I suspect that<br />
you know him, or at least know of his<br />
work, or at least have heard the name<br />
before, or at least would lie to me<br />
now that I’ve said all that I’ve had with a<br />
“You know, he sounds familiar, but...”<br />
I appreciate the sentiment in advance.<br />
Which would, for many, get them fired.<br />
But the IBM logo still looks the same.<br />
And if I said, “IBM Ad”, and you thought<br />
of an eye, bee and M, then you too have<br />
been affected by Mr. Rand.<br />
The modernist that was Rand would<br />
allow me to disassociate the artistic<br />
movement of modernism and modernity<br />
itself. Modern modern modern.<br />
Paul Rand was really good at what he<br />
did. He was so good, that he hardly<br />
needed to do anything at all to do<br />
what he wanted to do. He saw design<br />
as a problem - not as quantum theory<br />
or a deeper philosophy, but more like<br />
a mathematics worksheet that you felt<br />
like you received a bit late into your<br />
high school career, one that when<br />
you were handed it, you would say<br />
“really, professor - aren’t we a bit old<br />
for take home worksheets? Frankly,<br />
I think this one is missing the comic<br />
sans and some stock microsoft word<br />
illustrations.” I say that in particular,<br />
because Rand’s solutions were made of<br />
construction paper and put together<br />
with paste, and to anyone else, it would<br />
end there, but he had the AUDACITY to<br />
walk into a meeting room, slam his arts<br />
and crafts project on the table and<br />
say “this is the answer, there is no<br />
other answer, the fifty cents worth<br />
of colored stationary that has just<br />
graced your vision will propel this<br />
company into the future.”<br />
But I suppose there’s more research<br />
to do there. By simplifying a design,<br />
making it purely visually efficient<br />
and elegant, we will likely sweep<br />
a vast majority of what that that<br />
design represents under the rug.<br />
Maybe these purist logos carved<br />
with perfection in mind hide the<br />
corruption and lack of fundamental<br />
ethics under the hood.<br />
Maybe every pretty logo is lying to<br />
us. Maybe I should never make anything<br />
ever again and just tell the truth<br />
from a high balcony in manhattan.<br />
Maybe I should do the same from<br />
coney island. If I’m going to become a<br />
complete psychopath-schizophrenic,<br />
then I think I ought to do it facing<br />
the ocean. That seems more ethical.
I do draw faces quite a bit.
We’re naturally drawn to<br />
them, without question.<br />
Of course we are. We see<br />
ourselves in everything. In<br />
electrical sockets. In the<br />
shape of fruit. In plants and<br />
animals. We see ourselves<br />
in rocks, which is somehow<br />
more commonly accepted<br />
than seeing yourself in an<br />
animal. Or at least, I would<br />
think so.<br />
I do think so, for a reason.<br />
There’s an obscured sense<br />
of familiarity to creatures<br />
or things that already<br />
have such a clear and unique<br />
face. If something remains<br />
in obscurity, we can assign<br />
our own definition to it.<br />
This definition tends to be<br />
one that is so ingrained in<br />
ourselves that we wind up<br />
looking at some kind of<br />
mirror with every object<br />
that we stare at for<br />
too long.<br />
I’ve come upon a bit of an<br />
issue. I only really ever<br />
draw other people. Every<br />
time I get the chance to sit<br />
down, I hunt for someone<br />
who has made the mistake<br />
of looking at their phone<br />
for too long, or passing<br />
out, or really, being too<br />
shy to look back. I say<br />
hunt, and mistake, the whole<br />
victimization thing again.<br />
Really, I just need a muse.<br />
You might have been that,<br />
but you’re not here. That’s<br />
alright. I’ll just have to sit<br />
you still for a moment next<br />
time you’re around, or at<br />
least while you’re making one<br />
of those aforementioned<br />
mistakes.
It’s not that the people<br />
on the subway aren’t you,<br />
no - it’s that they aren’t<br />
me. I can exaggerate their<br />
noses and eyebrows and<br />
cupid’s arch as much as I<br />
want, but then these folks<br />
aren’t themselves anymore.<br />
They’re the person I drew. I<br />
inevitably draw this person<br />
enough to fill a museum. alas,<br />
this person isn’t me.<br />
I hardly know what I look<br />
like. I don’t think of it<br />
often, anymore. Every once<br />
in a while, I’ll look in my<br />
reflection, and I know,<br />
there I am, but I think of<br />
myself as just another<br />
passenger, in the most<br />
classical sense. I’m there<br />
with a stern look, and a<br />
memo pad in my hand, and<br />
I don’t want to speak to<br />
anyone, I just want to listen.<br />
That’s pretty intimidating.<br />
The “everybody else” has<br />
invaded my sketches and has<br />
dug itself into a rut so deep<br />
that it has become arguably<br />
permanent. That individual<br />
that I draw, however many<br />
people they really may be,<br />
will always walk by my side<br />
so long as I carry this<br />
sketchbook.<br />
But it’s less by my side,<br />
and more so within me.<br />
Overlapping. As if with every<br />
step our feet are side<br />
by side, making lunchbox<br />
sized footprints on the<br />
metaphorical timeline of life<br />
that’s on a beach. Of course<br />
it’s on a beach. You know it’s<br />
on a beach. Or maybe it ends<br />
on a beach. Like the G or F.
I don’t think I’d draw me.