ici ET ailleurs

Les Desirs Patisserie, 236 9th Ave. NY, NY

2009-08-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

- SWEET DESIRES -

She said that Jean ("You can pronounce it John," she told me) works in the mornings and comes in and out, as he is the owner. I would have to talk to him about filming if I want to use the space. Esther (thats the name of the cashier) understood that I wanted, desired, to make an independent, low-budget movie rather than "the spectacular expensive" movies that Hollywood makes. When we exchanged names and I told her my name is Pedro, she responded by saying my name in a Spanish accent, I think I remember her saying that she's from Spain, I forgot specifically where, though. Gotta find out. So anyways, I ate a spinach and feta quiche, and it was good for $3.50. I also ordered a Perrier, I hadn't had one in a while, so it was refreshing. Quite refreshing. I'd like to bring my friend Zach down here and play some chess.

Another day, $5.95 for a cup of water, small black coffee (not bad for not being a coffee house, their espresso machine wasn't working, hope it gets fixed soon), and turkey sandwich.

Turkey sandwich not bad. Good bread. They used a baguette. Good turkey, could have been better. Lettuce could have been better. Tomatoes were good at least. Bad tomatoes are no good. Tomatoes with a little mayonnaise, very good.

Behind me sits a row of old people.

About four. 1, 2, 3, 4, all sitting individually a four individual tables. The old man to my farthest left yawns. I take a bite of my sandwich. Still good.

Very quiet. I could sit and read here all day.

The man who yawned left, and I am left with three old people. One man caughs.

I take a sip of my coffee and think about making a movie here. Or why not a movie, but a documentary. The noises, the counters, the old people that walk in and out.

"Howayou!?" She enters with her medical push cart.
"Im good, howayou!?"
"Ok, Im Alright."

"Let me get a Challah, it's what, 2 days old?"
"No, one."
"Well, alright."

"Marie, are you going to sit with me!?"

"Yeah, I'll stay. Alright, I'll stay. My grandson is in town."

More women walk in. They are excited. Loud. Talking loudly with the man who had yawned, left, and now returned. One lady complains about the humidity.

I don't know why I came here, I guess for the sandwich.

Too many women, old women, with their old health problems, are here. They're all "ok," as they say to one another.

I suppose I'm just another paying customer, so I will finish my coffee and buy a baguette.

Maybe I will film my rooftop once I get home.

The weather.
And health.
"Oh the flooding," one woman says.
"It's hot today, disgusting," says another.
"It's humid," said the man at the counter. He's finishing his purchase. Now I will.

1:39 pm / May 26, 2009 / Falafel Phenomenon

2009-05-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

I once stood in line at a falafel stand and got the basic "works," a pita stuffed to the nines with an assortment of cabbages, salad, hummus, fried falafel, hot sauce and tzatziki sauce. I ate it and I fell in love with falafel in pita with the "works."

However, on one particular day as I stood in line, already having ordered, a girl behind me started asking for fried onions, eggplant, and "chips" (fries) in to go along in her falafel. The man preparing hers said "Oh, you want it Israeli style?" Israeli Style, I said to myself, I've got to try this.

So today, as I took my lunch break at work, I walked down to the falafel stand on 12th between 5th Ave and University Pl. As I approached the window by the sidewalk, the man behind the counter eagerly asked me what I wanted. I happily replied "Falafel, can you make it Israeli style? I saw someone ask for it once and it looked too good." He happily retorted "Of course, that's the way to eat it." I was quite excited. I exchanged monetary currency for culinary currency and walked down the street with my prized lunch paper bag. I walked two blocks till I came across the corner of a building that had a sittable window ledge and ate my falafel with complete content, people watching on 13th st and 5th Ave.

I now sit with satisfaction, knowing full well, that, well... I'm full. The Isreali style falafel is a delicious thing, but one needs an open appetite in order to conquer its exotic mystique.

5:35 pm / May 23, 2009 / Splitting Shelves

2009-05-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

My friend Zach and I were going for a derive. Zach had once helped me, among four other guys, conceive of a short art movie about a group of young men and their encounter with psychogeography. On our derive, Zach and I came across this pile made from the debris of an abandoned chest of drawers. It was as if the shelves were splitting. Splitting shelves. That was the title of the movie Zach, our friends, and I made. Irrational logic confronts rational chaos.

2:59pm, May 17, 2009 / Toilet Phenomenon on the Sidewalk

2009-05-17T16:11:00.000-07:00

There was a toilet in the middle of the sidewalk. Well, not necessarily in the middle, more like off to the side next to an official city street pole, but it was the fact that a toilet sat there in the middle of the sidewalk. Would someone sit on it, I wondered? How did it get there, I wondered?

Perhaps it was a sign from Marcel Duchamp, R. Mutt Resurrected. There was one time in Buenos Aires, Argentina that I wrote a letter to the past to Richard Hulsenbeck. I was awake at around two in the morning when I felt a nostalgia come over me as I sat in the dining room of that apartment off Parana in Recoleta.

To: Dr. Charles R. Hulbeck

88 Central Park West

New York, NY

Dear Dr. Hulbeck,

Perhaps you can help me. I’m not feeling ill, but I am sick and tired of feeling that I may be living in the wrong period in history. I feel that I have been scammed out of a life that was supposed to be mine and a mouvement I should have been a part of. There is no way to look back or try to get back, that’s why there is no future, but I am against the future, and the present is just not what it could be. I’ve decided that time is the culprit and the only vengeance would be to kill time, to destroy time and remain timeless, nor the past or present, purely essential existence. That is all I have, to destroy the present while deconsidering the future. If there is any other remedy, please help. Time is the enemy, deconstruction of the present may be the remedy.

Sincerely, Pedro Juan Vidal IV

. . .

Perhaps it was a sign from Marcel Duchamp, he too desired a letter to the past. Earlier in the week, I came across a bagel in a random street doorway. Just sitting there. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was fine. It looked alright, at least. But I let it alone, admired it, took a picture of its presence, and continued strolling on.

I feel like Marcel Duchamp would have liked bagels. I feel like he ate bagels. He did, after all, live in New York at a time of incredible immigration not only European Avant-Garde artists, but also Jewish intellectuals.

1:14pm & 11:59pm, Sun: March 29, 2009 / Bagel Place

2009-05-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Why do people order "low-fat" cream cheese? Why do people order "low-fat" anything? It's just replaced by something artificial or chemically altered one way or another. This rage took place where I go to get a good bagel. Sunday, of course a perfect day to go and get a bagel, so of course, everyone goes. The bagels, the idea, the phenomenon that draws hundreds to get their own personal variation between type of bagel and spread. I had just seen three people sit at the bar, whom had started eating before I. They sat, got their food, ate it, finished it, and left. They sat, ate, and left. No time of contemplation. Europeans then walked in. They walk in and you can tell they are European by what they look like. They look different then Americans when they travel. These non-americans actually look as if they considered what to put on in the morning, not as if they were ready to go the gym, running out at a moments notice in this face paced world. You can tell if they are European tourists because they travel in mid-sized (4-6 people) family oriented groups, one usually has a backpack, and they all speak to each other in their native tongue all too comfortably in a place foreign to them. The Europeans sit near and a far. . . "Danke," I hear from one. I think they are German, or possibly Austrian. One, who had said danke, now twice, must have really enjoyed her bagel and I hope she did and I hope they all ordered their bagels with regular cream cheese. A cute girl sat on my other side, my left, she's reading, I'm reading and writing. I don't know what she's reading, I have never heard of it. I don't even remember what it was called, and I had just read the spine. She's really attractive, nice body, seems to be well put. Sitting, staring, wondering, taking no action what so ever. I think to myself, "what if she took the initiative, what if she were to take action, and bridge our disconnection in search of a connection. Again, I sit, stare, and wonder. Or, if I were to act, what would I do, what could I say? - "What are you readin? Don't you think they gotahellofa bagel here? Do you write?" She looks to be of my age, but I should not worry because nothing is going to happen. Her breasts are supple. Maybe she sat next to me because she saw me reading and writing and is expecting, hoping, the entire time she sits there that I will take the initiative to talk to her. As she drinks her juice, the bottle cap falls the the ground, but to the side away from me. Maybe she purpously dropped the bottle cap, meaning for it to infact fall on herside of the table towards me so that we would both go to pick it up or I would pick it up for her and we would lock eyes miday and all that bullshit and whatever.

It looks brighter outside, the day had started off rather grey. I like writing grey rather than gray.

There she sits and waits. There she prepares herself and leaves. I finish reading. I have to pee. I leave.

...

The intersection, my memory of it is fuzzy, near 16th or 17th on 7th, or maybe 6th Ave, I'm not sure. I saw her, the cute girl from the bagel place. She had on the same green jacket and was using the same polka dotted bag. I saw her and was so stunned, so amazed at this coincidental phenomenon, that I stood still in the middle of the intersection thinking which way to go, to turn and follow the girl. I did, I followed her to see where she might be going, and when I did, along came a subway entrance and there she went.

After doing some research on a nearby subway map, I'm pretty sure that I saw her get on the 1 train on 18th, 7th Ave. I'm pretty sure. So at least I know she lives in the vecinity of my neighborhood. Which I still need to explore more. I am trying to expand my psychogeographical spectrum and I am attempting a project in order to expand. Through a nano-narrative, or meta-narrative-something, I will shoot, capture, record, myself in different spaces, from small to large, unedited, one minute. I will see where this evolves to. So far I shall use my room, my elevator, my rooftop, and continue, venture off, onto the unknown.

It's pretty windy and loud outside tonight. Like last night, but that was a thunderstorm. It made me imagine a giant tsunami was drowing New York City and oil tankers and ships came on that giant wave, crashing into buildings. I went to sleep after that.

1:54pm, Fri: March 27, 2009 / Hudson River

2009-05-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

I sat writing by the Hudson River in what appeared to be a metal jigsaw piece in which the chairs created the open spaces along the perimeter of the large abstracted square frame. In the midst of that, a highway runs parallel to the right. I saw the location and exit sign, but could hardly make out 30 percent of it due to a tree in the way.

This is the large metal "psychogeographical" sitting table area which I sat at. Being part of a public interactive piece is quite interesting because adding the human element exploits and points out the human element, a sort of panoptic alienation. I know that everyone is watching me, so that makes me self-conscious. I want to marry someone who will grow old gracefully with me. I sit here at the crossroads of modernity, industrialization, and nature.

As I look out at the River Hudson, I see the shore of ol' Jersey laid out in front of me. It makes me think of the canals and waterways that devide the ancient towns of Europe like the Thames in London or the Danube in Budapest. Here, though, you see the construction of still a young nation, and most evidently in its architecture. The United States has been formed on the form of industrialization and ephemerality rather than history and humanity. It is colder now, a cool breeze has just kicked in. I work in an hour and thirty five minutes. I'll probably go back to my apartment soon. My dad called from Puerto Rico. I think his phone went off. He had called me earlier. People think art is a joke. A girl is walked by me, exercising or something. She sees me writing. Some guy runs past me listening to his digital music player. He sees me writing too. They probably think, "Oh look, look at that guy sitting there in that stupid metal and wood public urban area. Look at him writing thinking he's a writer." I look across the urban landscape. I notice how it slowly diminishes as it gets closer to the water.

10:27am & 2:36pm, Wed: March 25, 2009 / NY, NY

2009-05-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

AM - I think the rolling ball on tip of my precise, extra fine pen has been broken off. I feel the grittiness, the pen strains as I scrape the metal tip across the paper page in attempt to write. It is excrutiating. I should not have ____ ____ to work. I don't think anyone can tell but it feels like I can see what I look like. Everything is scratched up, blurry, smeary, smoggy, foggy because of my eyes.

PM - Half an hour break. Transition from sitting at a reception desk on the eigth floor of academic technologies to sitting at a table in a bagel shop. On the table there is my non-toasted pumpernickel bagel with chive cream cheese, and a black coffee, ordered black, yet received with milk and sugar. Damn them. Psychogeography of a bagel. Bagels have places. Bagels are places. Bagels go into places. My stomach. Food affects psychogeography. My psyche is alot more in balance now with this bagel in my stomach. My physical psyche. My mental psyche if off because I found out I will not be payed for another two weeks.

At this point I don't care.

I will return to my work space,

go to training, paid, but not immediately.

Geography. Manhattan. My Manhattan.

Psyche. Ever changing. 7 minutes

till my break is up at 3:00 pm.

That affects my psyche. Time restrained

psyche. A pysche that is conscious

of time. A man with a mustache

and bad, reptile like sunglasses walks

in quite creepily. Messes with my psyche

a bit. Their bagels would be better if

they would toast them, but they cater to

high demand, fast paced customers. No

toasted bagels.

The window of the door offers a cinematic frame of perception. People walk by to their next destination. I begin to think of transitioning to my next location I should go. I should displace my trash to the trash can and continue on my psychogeographical experiment. The creepy man left, I suppose I should too.

11:15pm Tue: March 24, 2009 / NY, NY

2009-05-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

I am in my bed, in my apartment.

Under the covers in my bed.

I am tired as a day comes to end.

I consider my day tomorrow,

an eight hour shift, and wonder how I will get

through it. I know I will get through it,

but how I am wondering.

My leg itches. I didn't brush my teeth.

Going to sleep is wonderful. Sleeping is

glorious. Not knowing you are sleeping

is unimaginable. This writing experiment

begins in my dreams. My dreams are unimaginable.

I feel hazy, uncertainty looms over,

clarity is at a loss. I ponder, touch

a finger to a nail, sighing apathetically

to the muscle twitching in my thigh.

On my leg. In my bed. Under the

covers. In my one room studio apartment.

My roommate sleeps overhead on the loft

his girlfriend had built for him. She's handy,

he says. So I see. So I think. Before I am

off to sleep.