Dodgy Philosophy

Greil Marcus has been writing his Real Life Rock Top 10 lists for 30 years through a variety of venues: New West, the Village Voice, ArtForum, Salon, City Pages, and, most recently, The Believer. Cranky ("Aren't tribute albums horrible...") or celebratory (pop songs, TV shoes, live music), they are always fun to read.  Now Yale University Press has published the lot in Real Life Rock. Happy New Year fellow listophiles!

Here's #10 from a December 1986 column from the Village Voice that shows some love for a WFMU fanzine and a slant six:

10. WFMU-FM, Lowest Common De­nominator, Fall ’86 (Upsala College, Fast Orange, New Jersey 07019) 
Fan­zine from the left-side dial spot (91.1) already described in these pages as “The #1 Choice of Lowlife Scum.” There’s an homage to Bobby Sherman, a poem about Vince Everett (Elvis in Jailhouse Rock), serious analysis of pop trends, and, completing our survey of contemporary religion, a summation of what it means to live in a world where God is dead, “JEAN-PAUL SARTRE FOR DODGE DARTRE,” a flyer apparently scavenged from a telephone pole in Seattle, which plumbs the black hole of existential vertigo even better than Sartre: “In my journey to the end of the night, I must rely not only on dialectical paths of reason. I must have a good solid automobile, one that eschews the futile trappings of worldly ennui and asks only for the most basic maintenance. My Dodge Dartre offers me this basic solace, and as interior parts fall off I am struck by the realization of their pointlessness. I may not know if the window is up or down. It is of no consequence.”

El Dolar

El Dolar van enjoying the last few minutes of free parking.

And then it was gone.

Jackson Heights, Wednesday morning.

Surging Temperatures, Plunging Automobiles

 Sign at the head of tiny Park Place, Mystic, Conn. Christmas Eve 2015.

See-Saw

At the BQE split, near the St. Michael's Playground, Jackson Heights-East Elmhurst border.

Be Kind, Rewind!

For the person who has everything...

Or the one who hasn't been outside the house since the 1999... Available at Majors Records, Port Richmond, S.I.

Bird Calls

Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!

Third Ave. along Gowanus Expressway.

Gowanus Grays

Crossing the Gowanus on Monday morning. El Nino?

Les Tours Edison

From a Newark-bound NJ Transit train.

Cheek to Chucky

Got on the 1 train at South Ferry. A woman carrying a shopping bag got on right behind me. She stood in the door looking out and shouted, "Blue! Blue!" I couldn't tell whether she was calling for the cops or a dog. Eventually she sat down and put the shopping bag on the seat between us. Just before the door closed, a guy got on the train. "Where was you?" she asked. "I called for you." He told her about some trouble with the MetroCard. He seemed a little miffed that she had got on the train before he made it through the turnstiles. "I called you like five times. Four or three times. You can ask the people on the train." I waited for the question but it didn't come.

They talked about switching trains at 59th St. and whether or not to get off at Chambers to go to a Chinese restaurant. They both seemed very tired. I glanced down to see what was in the shopping bag. A Chucky doll in a bright yellow box with red and blue letters: "He wants you to be his friend"

House of No

I have been waiting years (years!) to be stopped at just this spot above Sunset Park on the Gowanus Expressway. Finally, last week, on a clear day with light traffic in the other direction, it happened. My black-and-white whale: the "Say No to Drugs But Yes to Rugs" House.  Got you!

Traveling both directions, somehow I never connected one side with another. This is also the building I call the Morandi House because of its odd stuccoed turret. Bonus!

Giorgio Morandi, Natura Morta (1964)

See what I mean? Can we landmark this building before it's too late?