A Visit to the Arts Council of England

It is raining in London today, for the first time in three weeks of unbearable heat and humidity. It is amazing how much I can feel the change—people continue to pepper the sidewalks, but their strides are more purposeful, even fresher. They have a new directive. It is gray again now too, that normally unescapable shade of London that has characterized it in so many of its portrayals. To be honest, the London I am seeing on this visit is different than the one I grew to love in the spring. This London is noisy and crowded, full of people wandering aimlessly and confusingly through overly sunny streets and past the tiny, pub-lined alleys that make this such a fascinating city. In this neighborhood, in this time of year, I believe that London is an unbearable haven for blinded tourists who do not know a city when it is sitting below, around, above, even between them. Yet I understand that we, as Londoners and lovers of London, need these people to make this city thrive, and of course that is important to us.

I have been thinking about this while reflecting on our visit to the Arts Council of England today, of which I have somewhat mixed feelings. The woman who spoke to us clearly understood our mission and spoke to it beautifully, discussing the need for culture in a global city and how people want to be in places where there is culture. She spoke about how funding goes in on one end and comes out somewhere else; I think this is such a great concept, and I am trying to use it to convince myself that these tourists are needed in order for the continued vitality of the London that I know. If commercial theatre brings in millions of pounds for London, will the small theatres and experimental groups eventually see some of that, whether by visitors looking off the beaten path after exhausting the West End or by a commercial theatre starting a small side troupe for new works? And I suppose, in the context of this course, this brings me to another question: are the small, more local arts projects part of the global city, and do they deserve the same attention?

I would argue absolutely yes. There are people who come to this city because they know that there will be a place for them, or because they know that this is the place to be for puppetry or sound design or modern dance or whatever. In the first class we talked about the draw of a city, the pull that makes people feel they need to be there. It seems like everything is happening in a city. To me, before it is a center for international commerce and a hub for world markets, London is a living, breathing, interacting city, full of daily exchanges on the personal, social level, and existing in the ways in which its residents and visitors and newcomers perceive it. It is a space for development and creativity, for the cultivating of ideas through many perspectives and many lenses. So is there room for the small creative groups in the global picture of London? I hope so.

One of the things I greatly admire about the London branch Arts Council of England, or at least about the woman who spoke to us, is the recognition of the tension between making the global city and addressing the local need. If London didn’t have a local population, would it be a global city? I think people need to live there for it to be a truly functioning place. This tension extends beyond London; the Arts Council of England focuses much of its attention, and finances, on London, and this is understandably sometimes difficult to explain to the other regions. In this movement of global cities towards being massive complexes of global power and wealth, I think it is important to consider the impact that this will have on local life and culture. Class and ethnic issues aside, for anyone can live in a global city and be involved in the local life and culture, what will happen to local communities if their character becomes dominated by international conglomerates tagged with names and brands applicable to every city in the world?

London Observations

Subtly, unintentionally, I think I’m learning more about the culture here than the organization where I work or the field of study I'm pursuing. I remember being a child and singing "London bridge is falling down," seeing Paddington bear and London Fog jackets and imagining a gloomy, phonebooth-red-tinted city of grime and Charles Dickens and proper accents. I think in many ways I have yet to open my eyes to this city. I have been so caught up in making this the place I live, in adopting a "British lifestyle," that I have ignored the beauty that is London and the exquisite opportunity of this recognition. It's gloomy today, as that typical London day is, and gray strips of clouds hang over Canary Wharf, lightly matching the dark gray water of the Thames below Greenwich. Everyone around me is exclaiming “brilliant” and “cheers” and complaining about the weather, as anyone anywhere would. To them this is life, but it's something that I'm learning--the differences are quiet and subtle, hidden beneath casual lunchtime conversations and the day-to-day acknowledgments and comprehensions of the workplace.

Spacious Skies and Amber Waves of Grain

It is hard to really describe America. Can you encompass it in a phrase? We can pinpoint aspects of eras, fractions of moments, the elements that seemed to be the most glaringly obvious personifications of this country, and yet still with a million of these details we cannot come to see the bigger picture. I think what fascinates me the most about the United States is the quietness of its diversity. The news boils everything up and down, making scenes and taking fragments for the world. But what about the people who are just going about it? Everyone has their larger issues and battles they fight, but somewhere every moment a representative from every group is going to the supermarket or the bathroom or the office. There are certain elements of American daily life that, in some form, become universals--but where does this take us? Back to the very differences that exist quietly, or in some cases loudly, and make this country what it is. And I want to see all of it.

I want to see Montana and Wyoming, where there are stretches of uninhabited land for miles. I want to see Los Angeles and the Anglo-European Sikhs and Chinese immigrants and Indian Americans who live and work and drive their SUVs there. I want to see Texas, all of it, I want to see Houston with its black Evangelists and Austin with its urban Texas mezcla and San Antonio with its Catholics, its Jews, its Texans, for the lack of a better word. I want to see New York for the thousandth time and see something new about it, like I always do, I want to walk down new streets and old streets and changed streets and feel the movement that is too easy to miss and too hard to dismiss. I want to see Attica, Kansas, again, and remember the vastness of this country. I want to see Route 66 and every inch of what's left of it, I want to drive down Santa Monica Boulevard and through the hills of Denver and across the grand state of Missouri and through places I've never been--Kentucky, Idaho, South Dakota, Georgia. I want to drink coffee in Boulder, pray in Chicago, speak Spanish in New Mexico, discover Alberkerkee which I can't even spell, eat cheese or do something even more wonderful in Wisconsin. I want to root for the New England Patriots and boo for the visiting team at a Knicks game and wonder when the Oakland A's will win the series. I want to meet a stranger on a bus in Saint Louis and remember everything but her name, I want to encounter the hundred cultures I see on the Boston T every morning, I want to experience them and their Americanness and their foreignness and their joys, their worries, their realities. I want to see Bombay Dreams and the Producers in the same day, I want to visit Colliers ABR and a construction site in Arizona, I want to speak with them all and hear their stories. I want to compare in an incomparable sort of way. I want to discover without being a tourist, I want to play the role of the outsider and the insider, the visitor and the neighbor, I want to view this from so many angles.

I want to look out the window of my apartment on Morningside Drive and see all of it in the cab crawling through the rain on a gray April night. I want to see it in the eyes of David and Nivan, with whom I end up in the same place after lifetimes of difference. I want to see it in the future of three children playing in a park in a nameless, timeless place, and know that the more things change the more they stay the same, and it is good.

Goodbye to New York, Part 6

The first thing I see when I open my eyes as we descend into LaGuardia is the New York City skyline jutting into my window. The transition from Cleveland (or rather Oberlin, Ohio) to airports to New York City is not a smooth one. I missed New York and I didn’t even realize it. Sometimes living in Manhattan makes us forget that we live on a tiny island and makes us dismiss the word “glorious” as touristy when it applies so well. Who could disregard such awesome man-made beauty, despite the sea of dirt and concrete and all the excrements of too many peoples’ lives? As we descend I watch the island from my aerial angle. I can see down all the streets, straight from east to west the reds and yellows that litter the perfect lines and comforting symmetrical grids. Now I’m stuck in the traffic I pinpointed from the plane when I muttered to myself “shit look at all that red, it’ll take forever to get back to the city,” spoken like a true New Yorker. I’m starting to realize that this will become my commute, this half-day trek from flat normalcy to vibrant hectic heights. I will be leaving the city behind, and it will not wait for me. I will come back a foreigner to the city that has been my home for eight years. I will get in a cab from the airport and frantically write in the dark backseat about how the city sucks me in and spits me out and no matter how much I keep up I will always be behind. Yet there is no other way to live the city life, to breathe the dirty city air and thrive on it. When I’m gone I will compare everything to how it’s done in the city, but after a few weeks my definition of the city will be entirely obsolete. When I return to it I will have to start again, rebuilding my definition, only to do it again and again for a lifetime. This is not a bad thing, though, for every time I return to Oberlin, Ohio, it will be waiting for me just as I left it, with everything in its proper place. I will know it and own it and I will not need a rhythm or a vibe because nothing will require that kind of synchrony. That kind of familiarity will be nice for a few days, but this city, the city, does not suffer from monotony, and its constant deformities and reformations will keep me from sinking into passivity, into “okay” and normalcy. The city makes do; it goes on what it has and doesn’t pause for departures. The city will not miss me; it will take my absence with nothing more than a grain of salt. I will never say goodbye to the city, because it has never said goodbye to me.

Goodbye to New York, Part 4

I loved Miracle on 34th Street until I became a New Yorker. On that first Thanksgiving in the city, for that’s when Christmas starts here, the holiday became my third symbol of New York. I love the Christmas season because everything is so happy, even the women Goodwill Santas collecting dimes from wealthy Long Island shoppers outside of Macy's during a blizzard or even in slush. It seems like everything is dying around me even while remaining so hiddenly vibrant. Call me sentimental but I cried during the Christmas All-School chapel this year, when the first graders processed down the isle with plastic candles in all their glory, the children's eyes focused intently on the outstretched arms of squatting teachers at their destination. I picked out you and Bobby and Giulia and Laurence, vicariously remembering you when you were six through these unfamiliar children, at the same time mixing future with the past and present and wondering if my children will be repeating the same holiday ritual in a few years. Then during "Once in Royal David's City," the words to a song I hear only here serenaded me and the strong beautiful voices of the thirty other people in chorus surrounded me like the timbre of a tympani drum. My eyes watered and I looked around at all the other seniors near me and saw similar tears in their eyes. We knew security was quickly leaving us and tradition slowly releasing its grip on us, ready to exclude us the next time around, though we may not be ready to let go.

Our eyes danced over the rows and rows of Trinity students in their uniforms and formal attire, and for once we did not spite the rules we loathe nor did we desire to change the system we criticize, but rather we accepted it for what it is indeed and found the beauty somehow, somewhere, in the moment. Some of us remembered the Messiah Sing-In two nights before and how we stood outside singing carols, as always, and were not ready to shed the tears we knew we would later shed over the moment. And then when Mr. Rupcich told us he would be conducting next year at that event, smiles and tears all around in the basement of that old church that only we know by heart, some happy because they will see him in all his glory, some sad knowing they will not be able to return for it. In a heartbeat the service was over and we didn't know exactly how to feel. Lost?

Goodbye to New York, Part 3

On the day of my graduation from eighth grade I went to a party at the Canfield house, my second symbol of New York. At the time it was to me Nick’s penthouse, but it has become my haunt, saturated with awkward memories.

We’re listening to Nix Mix again, in the backroom of the Canfield house, where we have spent many indecisive nights. I put on Less Than Jake and everyone screams in revolt. This is the group I have known since fifth grade but didn't really befriend until ninth. We don't really know why we are friends except because we commuted to that urban Cathedral close with peacocks and choirs for a few years. We are growing apart but we cling to that common experience for stability, for the reminder that we are really all that we have to hold on to. I hide myself in the covers of Suzie's bed because we're watching some stupid action movie in the dark, and Madeleine comes over and gets in bed with me. We pull the blankets up to our chins to fight the air conditioning and whisper about loving and hating this place-- the same old people, the same old motions and movements, the same old Domino's and Coke, the same old shushing and laughing. The light is flipped on and Nick pounces on us and doesn't move, so we are three in a bed, pulling at flower sheets and fluffy pillows, and Max comes in with his yamhaca and feels unloved. Lights out again and the movie is resumed with Max in a chair and the rest on the couch, except for the three of us still performing a balancing act on the bed. We talk for hours when the movie ends, sharing stories about the sex we’re not having and whispering our fears. Someone shouts “hey remember that time on this very couch…” and the victim of the story blushes at the revelation of a memory she had hoped had been forgotten. In the Canfield house I have learned about the nature of secrets. I have learned that the city itself has too many secrets that they aren’t even secrets because no one’s keeping them, because no one knows they’re there. I have learned that you can’t have a secret if you don’t know you’re keeping it. So another night winds down at the Canfield house and everyone grabs trash on the way out, waving goodbye when it never really is.

Goodbye to New York, Part 2

"Who's playing tonight?"

"Wayne," responds a tiny, hunched-over man with a black and yellow cap sitting placidly outside a tiny, brick-lined doorway. "It's ten bucks," he says, as two twenty-somethings in Columbia tee-shirts enter the narrow stairwell with Heinekens in hand and smug faces, amused by themselves for inquiring about the musicians of a jazz world with which they are entirely unfamiliar.

We enter behind them, paying with crumpled, used and reused ten dollar bills, and follow them down the stairs into a dark, musky, scarcely-populated room. In the corner, a few disheveled musicians sit on a bookshelf, staring blankly at a half-full pitcher of cranberry juice on the dry bar. Small's has forks, barstools, cups, and even a microwave, but has never served anything but cranberry or the occasional apple juice, as I learned on my first visit there, when I attempted to order a Coke. Fifteen or so trips later, I have learned my lesson and now carry a bottle of water and a candy bar with me, in case the jazz inspires some chocolate craving in me.

I tell Katie, who has never been here, that the musicians arrive when they like. At 10:30, they've set up and begin to play. As they swing into their first number, I enter a trance, fixated on the welcoming picture of Louie Armstrong directly behind the band. I had been convinced it was a photograph of Duke Ellington, but after the set that night, the owner told me otherwise. Despite this new information, the photograph still looms in my memory constantly, as my first symbol of New York, a reminder of smoky, hazy nights spent at Small's and the eerie familiarity of a single smiling face.

Nick, an aspiring jazz musician and connoisseur of sorts, introduced me to Small's two years ago. Now, when I ask him to accompany me on one of my many trips there, he refuses, claiming it is "selling out and losing its cool." To me, though, Small’s is just beginning. I can't get enough of that dark enclosed space where New Yorkers blend with an occasional out-of-towner, businessmen fare well with musicians, and where both nobodies and somebodies go for relaxation and a good rhythm. I find myself constantly drawn to its sepulchral feel and familiar tunes, its secretive existence and early morning hours, its good taste in jazz and its ability to make me feel at home downtown. The dissenting chords, giant bass plucks, and harsh sax notes make me think, ponder, question, and perhaps most importantly, live.

When we leave Small's, I stay to talk to Mitch, the owner and peaceful collector of the cover charge. He begins our conversation with a simple, "good?", and I respond, "as always." We launch into a discussion of hungry mice, how to salvage the dying Fat Cat (his billiards/jazz club joint that isn't doing so well), what makes a musician (and a good one at that), the importance of style, and Walt Whitman. He tells me he's his biggest fan, and that in the 1950s, before this small hole in the ground was Small's, it was home to Lenny's Hideaway, one of the first gay clubs in New York, a place patronized by many of the famous Beat poets. I'm in awe of the history of such a tiny room and go back downstairs for a minute to see if I can feel the presence of ghosts or history or maybe have some lines come to mind, and they do. Duke Ellington saying “playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.” Whitman's "What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?" Whitman's "Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem." I go back upstairs, haunted, and continue my back-and-forth chat with Mitch, who plays violin on 68th and Columbus during the day and reminds me of an owl in some way, holding deposits of information and releasing them slowly to people who tap into them enough. I promise to return soon, and at one a.m., hail a cab to my uptown abode, fulfilled once again by an evening of rich jazz and conversation I've found only in New York.