Loops

Reflections on Moondog

1. I ♥ NY

Lying in bed in my East Village apartment I can hear the ticking sound of a mechanical timer – perhaps the building’s gas or electricity meter – turning round on the other side of the wall.
     Strangeness of a new place:

        orange street light filtering through the thin blinds
        unfamiliar smell
        buzzing fridge, a few feet away from my head (studio)
        street noise outside the open window
        car goes past dopplering r’n’b
        laughter

A girl sits down on my gate post and makes a long phone call. Pleading, sobbing. ‘Come on. I’ll have the money for you on Tuesday. I swear. On my daughter’s eyes. What do you mean? You don’t know what I’m going through here.’
     And that metronomic clicking, relentless sound of time passing.

        Time present and time past
        Are both perhaps present in time future,

That doesn’t sound like good news, Tom. I mean, in this economy? You want to keep your options open. You want to diversify. Try not to get tied into anything.

I have to go out.

I pull on some clothes. The heat is oppressive, even at 1 a.m. Tompkins Square is dark, filled with movement. A lot of people around tonight. Many reasons. Broken air con. Nowhere to sleep. Too wired. Too high. 104 degrees this afternoon, add another twenty in the underground. The sound of skate wheels on the basketball court, junkies conferencing on the benches of Crusty Row. Whole place smells of skunk. By the Avenue A gate some jazz musicians are conducting a discreet free-blowing session, begging the question – can a free-blowing session ever really be discreet? This feels that way, despite being basically very loud. Feels clandestine. They’re watched by a small crowd, some of the street people who hang around outside Ray’s Candy Store, others like me, forced out of their stifling apartments. The musicians honk and squeak. Everyone follows their own path, the tenor player and the drummer driving things along, half a dozen others dropping in and out, attacking everything from an upright bass to a set of bongos, meandering around with various degrees of competence, assuredness, purpose, strength of will.
     Out of the pitch blackness of the basketball court steps a tall man in a wizard’s cloak. He has a staff. Very metal. Seems to know the guy with the star tattooed on his cheek, the one leaning on his crutch, making his bottle of Olde English 800 perform a dance for the good people. For a moment I think it’s Moondog . . . except this guy can see, is aged about 25 and looks totally wasted. I think he might be about to cast a spell.

        broken bottle smashes
        argument by the benches

        dog barking

        honk rattle


– The rest of this article is printed in Loops Issue 01, available to buy from these Stockists.