Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1409081820540.15012@panix2.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: netbehaviour@netbehaviour.org
Subject: What Happened and different music
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2014 18:24:52 -0400 (EDT)
What Happened and different music We left Brooklyn suddenly. We returned for the images last week. The real estate bubble (we're across the street from the Barclay arena) seems to have burst and I imagine another landscape of despair and abandonment. We left the building on Dean Street almost a year ago. It's still there, deteriorating, sad. Here's a brief report: http://www.alansondheim.org/varied01.jpg Mail forwarding note fading, still attached to the door. http://www.alansondheim.org/varied02.jpg Our names still on the doorbells. http://www.alansondheim.org/varied05.jpg Electric unpaid for months, there are fines. http://www.alansondheim.org/varied18.jpg Nearby a magnificent fungus in decay mode. http://www.alansondheim.org/varied23.jpg Black pigeon next to the police station. http://www.alansondheim.org/varied29.jpg Our building old, front. Air-conditioners ripped out, windows opened to the elements, are there squatters? We repaired the roof before every major storm. Now... http://www.alansondheim.org/varied31.jpg The side. We had the top floor, our curtains still there. http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis01.jpg Praying mantis on the side of the building, perhaps praying for us. http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis10.jpg Over the street, the 911 memorial shines brightly, killing birds on migration routes. http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis12.jpg The fungus, slightly earlier. http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis18.jpg And again, the color of blood. And I try to sleep, thinking of beheadings and rapes, and feel lost outside the city, and then think, how trivial is that feeling, at least I'm alive, and it doesn't help. http://www.alansondheim.org/mantis22.jpg Across the street, the Barclay center, cause of it all; the new building is modular, the pieces don't fit together, construction's stopped. This is most likely of interest only to myself, my friends. Displacement is almost always traumatic but this felt violent. We protested and fought the takeover of the neighborhood but lost. Our taxes were going up. We were forced out of Brooklyn. I don't remember my name. Some music on a small gimri without a string loop: http://www.alansondheim.org/gimri.mp3 http://www.alansondheim.org/gimri2.mp3 Always a lost elegy. Apologies for all of this, enjoy the different music.