The water, even though it’s dirty and tastes like bleach, washes them away. It’s better than a corner; it’s a tank. I’m not writhing against a pole or sitting on someone’s lap. I wear costumes with sequins and chiffon. Sometimes I don’t wear anything at all; that’s when I’m at my best, somersaulting and nosing my way into your wallet.
Read More“Except for waist-bands, forehead-bands, necklets, and armlets, and a conventional pubic tassel, shell, or, in the case of the women, a small apron, the Central Australian native is naked. The pubic tassel is a diminutive structure, about the size of a five-shilling piece, made of a few short strands of fur-strings flattened out into a fan-shape and attached to the pubic hair. As the string, especially at corroboree times, is covered with white kaolin or gypsum, it serves as a decoration rather than a covering. Among the Arunta and Luritcha the women usually wear nothing, but further north, a small apron is made and worn.”
— W. Baldwin Spencer and Francis James Gillen, “The Native Tribes of Central Australia,” 1899
Read MoreMy idea for getting married on a boat in the Hudson River was, in theory, a good one. It had come to me in a flash one afternoon at Shelter Island where my fiancée Karen and I had gone to scout out possible venues for our wedding. We were hoping to have a ceremony that was simple and secular, quirky but classy, something that incorporated our abiding love and affection for New York City, and also something that didn’t cost too much. Most of these requirements, however, seemed to have little chance of being satisfied by what we had seen during our six hours on Shelter Island, and it wasn’t until evening, while the two of us sat on the shore, depleted and dejected, imagining the worst possible cookie-cutter wedding, that we happened to observe a sailboat serenely floating past.
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This group of photographs was a part of the AIR Gallery summer exhibition, "If These Walls..." on Governor's Island. AIR Gallery and UNY initiated a collaboration where three writers created poems based on a water-inspired work from the exhibition. Poet Katy Lederer worked from Maxine Henryson's "Hudson Everyday"--you can read her poems here.
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Cynthia Manick wrote her poem in response to Chester Higgins, Jr.’s photograph, which captures a commemoration on the Coney Island beach of Maafa, the Kiswahili term for the “terrible occurrence” or “great disaster” of the Middle Passage and its ongoing effects. Buy a copy of this broadside here.
They come to me, reeking of desperation, eyes glassy with tears, weak brown like coffee. Señor Gold, they say, can’t you help me?
Can’t you help me get my man to stay?
Can’t you help me find a job?
Can’t you help me make the demons go away? They burrow in my skin like snakes.
Homeboy did everything he was told to do.
He asked which Orisha was the one for iron.
He found out it was the same one for war.
He took this as a sign.
He said some words and danced when nobody was looking.
He found some beads and started wearing them.
He did not make the connection between tricksters and St. Anthony.
He listened to Aguanile, and was really feeling it.
World of the usual kind. Sunset on the widest of oceans. The Captain was eating supper with the crew down below. The mate notched a piece of wood and his action was rather brilliant. Edwards watched the water. He was not accustomed to these pleasure cruises for the rich, to the beautiful strong-jawed ladies and the men concerned less with those ladies than with their own pocket squares.
Read MoreRickie’s got a foot on my head, I’m holding onto a fistful of his hair and he’s pressing my nose so far back it feels like it’s ramming into my brains. Whenever we get together, he beats the crap out of me. I’ve known Rickie since we were little, since baseball camp, when I had thick glasses and a patch to correct my lazy eye. Sometimes, my eye still goes berserk.
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I read about Dead Horse Bay while researching odd spots in NYC for my blog, This Hidden City. I had to see it for myself, and visited on Halloween, a little after low tide ended. It was a mild, but windy day. I parked too far, and it took forever for me to find an entrance to the bay. While I did take a few photos, I could hardly believe what I had seen. I returned with my girlfriend the following week, at the most extreme low tide. It was a colder, though less ominous day. I knew my way around this time, and did a bit more exploring. These photos are from both visits.
Sarah Mostow wrote and illustrated an artists’ book inspired by what lies beneath the surface of the river, and by her own personal history with the Hudson. Each page contains an original painting or drawing depicting such images as a dead giraffe, Henry Hudson’s ship the Half Moon, and a view of the River seen from Sarah’s childhood home.
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One of my favorite things about Underwater New York is that all of these strange, evocative objects we collect in our list, objects that have no business being beside each other on dry land, coexist underwater. I sketched some of my favorites so they would be beside each other here, too.
Read MoreTom wanted a Cadillac Eldorado but his cousin George said he’d cut him a deal on the Lincoln and when it came to family that was that. Where George had gotten the Lincoln, who knows? His cousin was full of mystery. An entrepreneur, is what George called himself. He loved to lord his vocabulary over Tom, challenge him, stretch out the syllables. On-tra-pri-noo-er.Restaurant manager, realtor, car salesman. Why pin yourself down? George said. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, dabbling his fingers in the air. Master of none.
Read MoreYesterday morning while I read Montaigne
a man drove his car into the Gowanus canal.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle
than myself, Montaigne wrote in the late 16th century.
It was a bright day.
The sun forgave no one.
“Single white derelict technical individual seeks thrill-happy, no-frills speedy kid for lasting velociromance”
Arthur Kill, that slim waterway that prevents Staten Island from being part of New Jersey, has a surplus of discarded watercraft. Scuttled, sunken, or just eternally moored. The Rossville Tugboat Graveyard is certainly best known of these sites, but wander the other industrial neighborhoods of western Staten and you’ll find yourself in places like this one: some dozen vessels, ranging from seemingly-operational to scrap-heap, all tucked into a narrow cove hidden from the road by a veil of trees. A hidden salvage yard? Temporary storage inadvertently become long-term? It is difficult to say.
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Carcasses is about the various cars that have come to their final resting place in the waters surrounding New York City. The movement of the car-shaped plexiglas pieces strung together as a mobile is how I like to imagine these cars slowly sinking down to the bottom.
Read MoreHey Brooklyn, come home
with me. Traffic makes the parade
look bigger. My mother says
if you can’t feel your cheeks,
it’s time to stop.
Read MoreThere were four men on that train in 1865,
and all the other passengers just belongings
and the baggage of stranger souls. A Wednesday
evening. No fog. The signal given as the bridge
divided and the sloop went past.
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